


Of Stars and Open Windows

by trashpocket



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: A bit of Religious Introspection, A few Christian references, A few spoilers if you plan to watch/read HDM, Angel/Theologian Relationship, Angst, DONT READ PLEASE, Different Realms, Different Worlds, Falling In Love, Fictional Religion & Theology, God is dead here, Hurt/Comfort, I believe, Just two men, Longing, Love, M/M, Marriage, Multiverse, Separation, Theology, Time - Freeform, angel - Freeform, because this is His Dark Materials, for a short time, so if ur sensitive to that, to understand whats going on, you do not need to know HDM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashpocket/pseuds/trashpocket
Summary: The stars were bright out that night, and it was perfect to look at them from the telescope Grandma had given him.But then there was an angel who dropped onto his balcony, and they were the very answer he was looking for.In which: Lalli Hotakainen searches for different windows into other worlds, and finds someone who may lead him there.(You do not need to fully know His Dark Materials in order to read this.)
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström, Reynir Árnason/Onni Hotakainen
Comments: 33
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katoninetails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katoninetails/gifts), [Rithalie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rithalie/gifts), [livia_1291](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livia_1291/gifts).



> _I'll carry the load  
>  Heavy as a stone  
> When the only thing I leave behind are weeds and broken bones  
> Black trees lining the road  
> Silent and secretly I stole  
> I dug holes to feed my soul ___
> 
> _  
> _-__ **Rhizome, Black Sea Dahu ******  
> 

“Lalli, are you sure you don’t want to stay any longer?” Tuuri spoke over the string quartet in the party, the lovely golden light shining outward from the doors of the great hall. Her silver hair gleamed and the shadows of her eyes showed that usual worry and disdain again — for his unsociability and for his early leave. He paid no mind to it. 

Behind him, the drawing room had been stuffy yet spacious at the same time, leaving him confused, flustered, and unsafe. He did not want to be there — and Tuuri _ought_ to already know that. She knew parties and crowds, even small ones, still overwhelmed him. 

“Yes, tell Reynir and Onni congratulations, but I have a paper to work on. And the stars are clear out tonight, I’ll be busy with the telescope again. Can’t waste time,” he shouldered on his coat, the furs of it ruffling his neck — just the right texture as he meticulously fixed the cuffs of his sleeves. He ignored Tuuri’s look of disapproval. 

“You won’t be seeing an angel any time soon, Lalli,” she shifted to cock a hip, “and you’ve always been stuck to grandma’s telescope. Being away from it for a while won’t hurt, you know? Besides, your paper can wait, and it’s been decades since an angel’s been seen — they might have left all of us already! What would you even ask them if they came by?” 

Lalli paused over bits of laughter that escaped the party behind them, cutting through the darkness to look at Tuuri squarely in the face. His sharp eyes spoke all that he had to say — which were none, for she already knew. And Tuuri knew better than to ask questions she already knew the answer to. Lalli had always been transparent about his job and what his goals were. It was useless to ask. 

“Lalli, _please_ , not this again,” she winced and pulled a hand through her hair. “Heaven, Hell — the land of the dead, what makes a difference? They either exist or they don’t! Wherever grandma’s soul is — it’s probably resting with our parents!” 

Lalli looked away from her, fixing the lapels of his itchy, wretched suit that Tuuri had forced him into. His skin crawled with annoyance. “That’s not for you to ponder about. It’s _mine_. You’re an ambassador for the Council. You don’t have to worry about my work.” 

“And _you’re_ a Theologian, Lalli, not an explorer anymore,” Tuuri stressed, fixing her fringe before looking up at him squarely. “You know better than to meddle with the higher powers. They caused a ripple decades ago, and _look_ — the Rash has been over and done with. Wherever souls go, we’ll know in our own time. Remember what happened to grandma? To you and Onni? You had _night ghasts_ haunting you for months when you ventured too far. Grandma had to learn enchantments to keep them off of her for _years_. Be thankful that you and Onni easily learned from her! She sacrificed her soul for us, Lalli. Our village hadn’t been as lucky.” 

Tuuri had no right to say that. Lalli was _indeed_ thankful — more thankful than any of them — than Tuuri and Onni. Why would he be doing this in the first place? Forces in the world that were greater than their lives existed, they _knew_ that, and after the great ripple in the sky had pulled a grave illness from the holes of the universe, crossing from one realm to another, how could he simply leave such things alone with half of their world dead? He wanted to see grandma, thank her, ask her great many things. See where her soul had crossed. See what was laid out in their future. 

The angels knew. The Authority knew. He had a right to know, after Grandma Ensi had entrusted him with so much. Her books, her work, her beloved telescope. 

Lalli was proud and would not disgrace her memory. So he said, “I’m thankful. _Very_ thankful and lucky. That’s why I’ll do it and try my best. This was what she gave me.” 

Tuuri looked up at the ambition so deep set in his eyes, and Tuuri would’ve marveled at it, once, in another lifetime, maybe. But she had her own dreams and aspirations, far separated from Onni and Lalli, and with her non-immunity, she knew what it was like to be barred from her dreams and her great opportunities. So one look at Lalli, and she knew she could never quell that desire and determination. Lalli was a force of his own: wily and elusive. He determined his own purpose to live. Tuuri would not be able to stop that. 

So, she dredged a sigh from the depths of her soul. “Fine, fine, I’ll come over in a few days, then. I won’t bother you until then. But you’ll _have_ to come to Onni and Reynir’s wedding with me. No leaving or escaping, okay?” 

Those conditions were good enough, though a bit bothersome. But he could live. It was only for one day, after all ( _hopefully_ ). He nodded, and said, “That’s fine. Just ring me up before you come over.” 

Tuuri grinned. “You know that never works. You barely even come to answer my calls, anyway. Not even my telegrams from the post. Now go on, Lalli. Onni will understand you don’t like parties anyway.” 

“Onni doesn’t like parties either,” Lalli rolled his eyes, snorting fondly. “This was Reynir’s idea.” 

“True, true. But we know how Reynir has him wrapped around his finger.” 

Lalli pulled a face at the disgusting knowledge, as Tuuri snickered into her hand. They said their farewells, Lalli patting her lightly on the back, Tuuri smearing a small kiss on his cheek ( _which he had let her do reluctantly_ ), and then he was walking out of Reynir’s home, creeping out of soft, naphtha-lit hallways, portraits of Reynir’s family littering the walls, and a few newer ones — with him, Tuuri, Onni, Sigrun, and Mikkel, members of the expedition into the quiet lands, years ago — littered onto the parts of the wall, nearer the entrance of Reynir’s home. The expedition had been poorly funded, messy, and quick; held only for half a year before it was pulled. They were searching for a source of the Rash Illness that had struck decades ago, when the Great Ripple had happened. The heavens opened, pillars of light entering different worlds tore a hole into their universe, and what followed were the birth of illnesses, famine, and monsters. Their world was slowly dying. 

But over the years, the _windows_ — these pillars of light — must’ve closed, because they found nothing out in the quiet lands. If they hadn’t closed, then their crew must’ve missed it. After all, though the Rash Illness might have surely been stopped through quarantine and a temporary cure that could halt the progression of the Rash, monsters and illnesses still permeated the land. A window must’ve been left open somewhere. He didn’t know, his crew didn’t know. They failed during the expedition anyway. ( _And those who had gone missing into the windows had never been heard of again._ )

That was why examining the stars, the sky, the gods, and the angels were important to him. Who said that windows could not be open in the sky? In the stars? In the ground beneath their feet? 

It was said that angels were the ones who used the windows to enter into different worlds. Could it have been the angels who brought the illness to their lands? Maybe, maybe not. 

It was a personal cause of concern for Lalli, though Tuuri, Onni and the others never really gave it much of a thought. Of course, they wouldn’t. They were content with the lives that they had. Tuuri had her job and her vast friends. Onni had Reynir and his job, and his safety. Mikkel and Sigrun had each other, their duties in the military, after the expedition extending to now. 

And Lalli had...grandma’s telescope, the stars, the sky. A fruitless endeavor. He would never admit that, though. 

“Leaving so soon, Hotakainen?” A man outside, smoking by the patio, overlooking the large land. Aksell Bjornberg. Lalli let out an inaudible sigh, annoyance bubbling beneath his skin. He didn’t say anything, and merely narrowed his eyes at the interloper and continued on. 

“I’d be interested to see your work, you know. Not everyday does a person get the opportunity to interact with a theologian who had ventured into the quiet lands. Most of all if they’re the grandchild of a great Scholar and Sorceress.” 

Lalli hated Aksell’s grating voice, the smoke that drifted from his cigarette, blowing through the wind and into his face. Lalli did not care much about people, but Aksell had been bothering him for a long while now, since Sigrun had introduced him as one of her colleagues from her team in Dalsnes. He had been too cowardly to join the expedition, and Lalli was thankful for that, because he had a feeling that the disgusting man was deplorable, crude, and grimy. He could feel it in his bones. 

“Not interested in sharing it. Now _don’t follow me_ ,” Lalli bit out in heavily accented Swedish; well memorized words that Lalli had asked Tuuri to teach him, specifically for this man. Aksell should be _honored_ that Lalli even bothered to memorize such words in the first place. Begrudgingly. 

He left the man on the patio and made his way home via one of the airships he had taken to get to Reynir’s residence. The airship was private and satisfying enough for him, arranged by Onni; it was silent and comfortable as he gazed at the sleepy towns, mountains, and lights below, growing quiet at the hum of the airship’s engine. Lalli made sure to look at the stars above the horizon. Checked every little dot with sharp eyes, waiting, anticipating, hopeful. On one hand, he catalogued everything he saw on a small notebook, which was: nothing that useful. Like always. 

He sighed, cradled his cold hands into the sides of his warm coat, and hummed to himself. Airships were always better than those death trap trains and boats. Those made him queasy. But the sky did not, strangely enough. It was steady, and was always aloft. Held a tant amount of safety that pulled at his heart, better than the land where creatures roamed, and he was out of the range of their whispers.

When he landed back down and left the airship for a quiet ride back home to his small house, nestled into the safety of woodlands near a small lake, he was bone-tired and weary. The preparation for the party, the small socializing he had done, and the travel had sapped him of all of his energy. He was sure that he could drop dead somewhere and curl up into a ball, suit and all.

But the stars were calling him somehow, and there was an itch upon his breast, where his heart was. A tingling in the back of his neck that told him to be cautious, to be wary. 

It was strange. He had not felt this since years ago, in the expedition, when they’ve drawn close to a site where one of the windows was said to be located. It hadn’t been there anymore, but the remains of it were clear; a ripple in the air, like magic, splitting the veil between the worlds. It felt like a scar in the atmosphere, and once, Lalli could imagine, there was another world there: a tear into the fabric of the universe where he could’ve stepped through. 

He felt it now. 

Lalli’s home wasn’t a grand thing. It was bare, practical, and a bit modern with naphtha lights and sheets of glass — Tuuri’s help in making his home more “well-lit” and “welcoming”. At least the sheets of glass were nice, because up on the rooftop, he had a glass ceiling, a dome, to look through the stars. A place where he could map different points of the world from his spot on the earth. Grandma’s telescope lay there — a large metal thing, enchanted with her spells over the years. It could beat the eyesight of beasts that prowled the night. It could look into the yonder, to almost see the billowing gasses of stars: burgeoning and great — mini suns suspended in the night. 

And he had been ready to peer at them once more. He had been ready for another sleepless night, to look for windows in the sky; for beings that floated by, sparkling like dust held in the form of a winged-human. ( _He had heard from a passing historian that angels once looked like that, when they still freely passed through the worlds, for a war in another realm._ )

But something else awaited for him instead, glowing on his balcony with the movement of a breathing being. Sparkling, gasping, _alone_. 

Lalli’s first instinct was to think this was a spirit — an entity — and he was ready to speak prayer to it, to guide it back. 

But he drew closer into his dark home, across his room, the stacks of books on the floor, the clothes that lay in a pile somewhere. The naphtha lights were off, the light of the moon was filtering through, and when he drew close to his balcony, and pulled the latch off of the balcony doors, sheets of glass glinting and reflecting — a feather brushed his leg, and then another, warmth seeping through his clothed legs, feeling so much like sunlight. His being quivered with equal proportions of fear and excitement from the otherworldly presence that lay before him. 

He did not know what to say, his mouth empty of words. But an angel lay at his feet — beautiful and dying. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I am not the only traveler  
>  Who has not repaid his debt  
> I've been searching for a trail to follow again  
> Take me back to the night we met ___
> 
> __- **The Night We Met, Lord Huron ******__

Windows no longer led where they first intended to. After the great ripple, and the war in another world that had followed, windows could lead to anywhere and everywhere all at once; a maze that stretched over different universes. That day ( _decades ago, to other worlds maybe, and days, perhaps, to some_ ): fate was set into motion, the worlds shifted delightfully and wretchedly, and worlds were nearly failing; windows wreaking havoc into planes of existence that didn’t need their meddling. 

He had heard of the great war, and the two sides that fought on it. He was the rare few that were cowardly and never chose a side. He did not want to die, but did not want to be subjected to killing his fellow brothers and sisters either. Higher rank of an angel he may be, but he feared so greatly and had drifted into different worlds — not all of them — but each had been equally beautiful. All the beings and the creatures. He could not kill the life of those who opposed the Authority, but he could not join the opposing side to kill his brethren and the different races that joined. His lonely heart was fearful and cowardly. He loved too much to aim to hurt.

So he had run into different worlds. He drifted from star to star; from window to window; phased through the fabric of the universe until the angel Xaphania had caught up to him. She was neither young or old; a face that drifted between new and ancient, glowing with an otherworldly light. Emil ranked higher than her, but Xaphania had fought in the war, had carried out orders on the opposing side, and they had won. The Great Authority was dead. 

And there she had been, not higher ranking than Emil, yet glowing with victory and a duty; face neither forgiving or accusatory. 

“Emil,” she spoke to him on the dunes of a world, overlooking a vast prairie, “you no longer need to run. The war is no more. You will not be persecuted on either side, you are safe with us. You must return, for we must fulfill another purpose. Come now, brother, please.” 

The winds cut the silence between them, rustling the reeds and the tall grasses that tickled their angelic feet. Above them, the stars hummed so clearly.

“The worlds are beautiful, Xaphania,” Emil had told her, ignoring her words, for they instilled fear in him — a fear that had long been placed by the Authority. He could not properly face her, for he felt shame for being a coward. “I have run to so many worlds, have looked into each one. Was all this death necessary? The life that lived and now could no longer return? What have we done? What have _I_ done?...I have left our brothers and sisters to disperse in the wind. These humans that I’ve watched….no longer will they breathe.” 

“That is simply not true, brother. One window had been chosen to be left open.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The window for the land of the dead. So the ghosts of those who have perished may choose to join the universe once more, or reside in darkness. You needn’t worry about their ghosts anymore.”

“Then why need _me_? I have been a _coward_.” 

Xaphania stood tall, overlooking the dunes and prairies with Emil; the untouched skies that glowed and beat with the thrum of the stars, absent of human settlements that obfuscated the heavens. Xaphania spoke with a grave voice. 

“When windows are left open, life seeps out of the different worlds. The universes. Plants, animals, humans, and all beings suffer. If these windows are left open, malicious entities seep into those worlds. We must close these windows, for there are thousands, maybe even _millions_ of them. And we need the help of every angel we can get — especially after the war. Not all have been strong enough to survive.”

“Our brethren…”

“Many have fallen, Emil…” Xaphania ventured carefully. Emil’s eyes widened in sudden desperation.

“Baruch! And Balthamos! What had happened to them?!” A great grief gripped Emil’s heart for the two lower ranking angels, and he turned to Xaphania with fear in his crystal clear eyes. 

Her frown said it all. “They died for our cause. Now please, Emil, let us not put their deaths to waste. I will teach you how to close a window. You’re a high ranking angel, you can survive better in different worlds than most. We must do this, or the worlds will slowly end. The life of the beings that you love may slowly perish.” 

Emil felt the loss deep in his heart, and an even greater shame and remorse speared its way into his being, much more beastly and painful than any flesh wound he had sustained. His cowardice — it had made him forget his friends. He did not know that they would join the fray, for low ranking angels were weaker than humans, much more fragile and frail. And despite that, they had joined. They joined where Emil had run away. They had the nerve, where he had lost his spine. 

And now they were gone, but they had won. 

“Emil?” 

He brushed the tears from his eyes, his lips trembling as he looked beyond the horizon and the sun that glowed and glittered over the sea — the prairie, the dunes. He looked to Xaphania, and Xaphania had never seen a fellow angel so beautiful in his remorse; so sad, so loving, so _pained_. But she knew Emil was a compassionate one, more so than they were, which was why it had been right to come to him. 

Emil spoke with a light tremble, “Teach me how to close a window, Xaphania. _Give me a purpose_ , so that I can earn their forgiveness. I won’t rest until all the windows are closed. _Please_ , I can’t _live_ like this — I have...I have never craved death so greatly as much as I do now!” 

The words struck Xaphania soundly. How long had Emil been wandering amongst the worlds? Drifting in between to fall in love with the beings; to feel and care so deeply, as humans do? Before the war, praying for death before a duty fulfilled would’ve cost Emil a punishment. A lowering of rank. A great suffering, to many angels. 

But this was a new time, and love and grief was a great force. Xaphania was no stranger to its power. 

“I will give you a purpose, Emil. You will learn to live with that grief, as will I, with my fallen comrades. Come now, let us find a window and end the suffering of all the worlds. Our comrades deserve nothing less.” 

And they found a window in the prairie world, far off near the coast. The window was a strange thing, suspended in the air like a glass mural, which could only be seen on side, which if one moved from that particular spot, just a tiny bit, it could no longer be seen through the other, even if one were to stand beside, or behind it. Xaphania stood in front of the window, peering into another world that had pipes, chimneys, and smoke peppering the sky, the clouds a sickly yellow and green. She told Emil to find the end of the window, and he pinched it, fingers almost going through with his lack of focus.

“Find the edge with your soul, Emil. Let your mind and your being feel it,” Xaphania instructed him, watching his fingers with a laser focus, “then pinch the end, and close it — _yes_ , yes, like that. Feel it, do not lose your grip on it. Good! Now close it, the whole way down, like tracing a spider’s thread in the air!” 

The chimneys, the smoke, the sickening clouds slowly disappeared with a pinch of his fingers, his fingertips tingling like starbursts and glitter. He waved his arm around the air for a moment, trying to find the window, or any scar or evidence it had been there. The only thing that remained was the nauseating scent of sulfur and gas, already dissipating with the absence of the window.

“Now we must travel to different worlds and find each window,” Xaphania told him, looking up into the sky. “It will take us awhile, but hopefully, we can find each and every one and close it.” 

“You will be travelling now?” 

Xaphania flapped her wings. “Yes, we need more of our brethren to return.” 

Emil unfolded his mighty wings as well, and though he was shorter than Xaphania, his wings were immense, massive things to be admired, spanning more than his own height on each wing; large and radiating warmth that spread out and coated other beings. 

“Then, I will take my leave too,” he said, eager to stitch up the pain left in his wounded heart, but Xaphania stopped him with a lurch. 

“What is it, Xaphania?” 

She was cautious and worried as she said, “You have to be careful. The war may have ended, but that does not mean all sides are gone, or that all evil and the traces of the authority have vanished. Some will still hold steadfast, even if they have lost as they retreat to their realms. They will see us and immediately know who we are, and they will hurt us. You _must_ be cautious.” 

Emil nodded with a grim look, eyes already searching the sky for a different window, which his being could feel with every atom. 

“Yes, I will be cautious. Not every world will be kind to us, after all,” Emil smiled blithely as if he knew a secret, to which Xaphania only nodded in understanding. 

“Be safe, Emil — brother,” Xaphania flew up and kissed him on his forehead. Emil nodded, and off into the horizon he found another window. 

* * *

  
  


He scoured the universes — for months, years, maybe. But in different worlds, after the Great Ripple, he came to understand that time flowed differently between each one now. Most of his work was fast when he could find the tears and windows in the air, but those on the ground, underneath the soil, or even in caves and underwater were harder to find. His work grew laborious over time. And Xaphania was right — he had to be careful. Not all of the worlds were safe, beautiful, and loving. There were the few that were dangerous and unkind (though _all of them_ were, he had never been greeted by outright hostility). 

He had not interacted with any being over those years, punishing himself with his grief, slowly growing to miss the life of wandering into the worlds, and simply watching the different humans and beings live, love, die, birth. But he deserved nothing for being a coward. He deserved nothing for running away during the war — so now, he could not shirk off the duty over all these years.

But then he had come into one world, where a wide window lay on the ground, like a piece of shattered glass, jutting out from the soil. 

It was in a forest clearing, and his being quivered with the need to close it. The grief in his heart was even stronger now, beating with pain, the years of isolation making the suffering and anguish harder to bear. The urge to make amends were strong and overwhelming. So blinding and deep; dull and numbing. 

And he was an angel, and rarely was Emil the suspicious kind who suspected others of malice or foul play. 

The window lay innocently and he landed on the ground with a dull thud, his massive wings closing behind him with grace. Around him, the forest was humid and noisy, filled with the chirping of birds and insects. His fingers reached out to close the wide window, but then a rustle came from a few bushes behind him.

He turned around, wings spread in alarm. “Hello? Who is there?” 

Emil moved forward, his glowing form shedding light onto the dark bushes, growing underneath an overhanging tree. He looked around and suddenly noticed a few minor details. Fresh indents on the ground, the scent of heated metal in the air, and feathers: glittering and silvery — just like his. _But missing a body._ He could smell something metallic and tangy in the air, and it reminded him of when a human child had scraped their knee by a riverbed. He had helped the child wrap it up. 

Something glinted in his light. 

The end of a gun barrel. 

He surged away with mighty speed, crying in alarm as he tried to fly through the window. Gun shots fired, jeers resounded and — _sharp, brilliant pain_ — momentary and drowned out by his adrenaline as he was shot through his leg and his shoulder, one passing through his wing. He tried to ignore the pain that passed through him. 

He faltered for a moment as he flew, crying out in fear, before he forced himself through the window, turned around and saw the faces of his attackers — crude humans, with wide eyes, holding the feathers of a comrade angel, chasing after him, screaming filthy things. 

His heart froze with great fear, but he closed the window as fast as he could — except, a gun barrel had stopped him halfway through and Emil stared down at it with mortification, and it shot at him, going through his thigh, his arm, clipped his wing again as he tried to dodge. He dropped near a large stone and he scrambled up as his attacker cursed, squeezing himself through the small window. Emil, with great effort, screaming in and grunting in pain, picked up the large stone quickly. He flew up with as much strength he had left and — 

“Come back! I will _kill_ you! Come on! Get back here, you winged devil!” 

His attacker was stuck, and it was perfect and — 

He dropped the stone onto their head that was peeking through, hitting them so soundly with a thud, Emil could already see the life escape him with that one, empty blow. Silence followed, death creeping in to claim their friend, and Emil just — he dropped to the ground stoically, not truly seeing. Not truly feeling. All the desolation, the emptiness in his heart was finally catching up.

He had taken a life before, of course, in order to protect himself. He had done what was absolutely necessary. 

But that was _once_ , before. That was once, before he had ventured to so many worlds, and had closed windows between humans and other beings. Had seen the way they loved, and lived, and birthed, and died. Before he had come to care and miss their existence.

He was saving himself here but it still did not make things any better. It did not erase the grief nor the guilt in his heart. It only made it grow _stronger_.

And he cried, and he vomited into the earth, as he pushed the man back through the window, touched his shattered head, apologized over and over as he closed the window. He was _not meant_ to be doing this, yet he was pushing away the very life he came to protect, his body burning with pain so brilliantly, and everything _hurting_ when it wasn’t supposed to — and once again, he found himself questioning why he was here. Why he was doing this. 

And he flew deliriously, needing a safe, closed space from the sky and that closed window; needed a place of silence where he could fix himself and the mess that he was. He needed a pair of arms to hold him, for he was lonely, and he was _empty_ , and he was bearing all the pain. But his wings were damaged, his injuries were bleeding so heavily, and he could not think. All thoughts left him, to be filled with regret and grief. He _wailed_ , for this pain was so great for an angel to bear. 

And this world was half dead, wherever he was, whispering with spirits, singing their regrets. He flew and flew, his glow growing dim, but he kept flying, and flying, until he found signs of life. He found a quiet house in the forest, ingrained with power and magic. The surface of a domed ceiling was reflecting the stars and the moon brilliantly like a beacon, and his wings were growing weaker, his vision was blurry — 

He dropped into a small balcony, limbs cold from the atmosphere, head hazy from the tears, the events, this world, and all the time he had spent, scouring the universes. When he dropped, he didn’t even feel a thing. 

He deserved this, probably. 

He deserved to die pathetically. 

But it must’ve been hours, or maybe a few minutes — but he felt someone entering the home finally. Felt a live, human being, padding their way through the home cautiously, drawing nearer and nearer. He tried to calm his breathing and turn his head. Now that hope was near, a part of him was willing to live. A part of him wanted to see someone in his last dredges of life, at least. 

The door opened, and wide, cat-like eyes peered at him, so bright and big and glowing — looking at him with such surprise, Emil swore, in another life, if he wasn’t so light-headed he could’ve fallen for those eyes with so much joy and much jubilation. He wanted to laugh.

But right now he was dying. 

He reached a glowing hand out, lips trying to form words. The man looked down at him, eyes darting over his injuries, here and there.

He reached a hand out, cutting through the air and curling his longer fingers into his — _and flesh, so alive, so harsh yet kind._

Emil sunk into his safety, and closed his eyes. 

He was content to die here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clearly, I live with no beta. But I hope all of you enjoyed this!!!!! i'd like to know all of your thoughts and stuff!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh honey you  
>  You're scattered to the four winds  
> Tar in the morning hours  
> And the white ridges of my home  
> I've altered and I know that you have too  
> And I'm thinking maybe I should've stayed gone ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Thaw, Black Sea Dahu ******_  
> 

There was an angel on his bed. 

Lalli did not know what to think of what he had seen, what he had touched, what he had witnessed before him. There was an angel, living and breathing; his life-long search for an answer, for some evidence of different worlds, now lay sleeping on his bed, living still, when moments before he had been near to death. But the problem was exactly that: the angel had been injured and bleeding, and was close to breathing his last. _Had somebody been after him? Were there people hunting angels down?_

Lalli watched the angel carefully in his periphery, the being glowing in the dark of his room where Lalli drew the curtains to hide him from any prying eyes. Lalli was efficient in wrapping up wounds and injuries; being a grandchild of a great Scholar and a Sorceress did not excuse one from knowing basic skills such as that. Especially when Lalli was once an explorer, out to venture into the quiet lands. 

Now he watched from one corner of the room as the angel slept and recuperated. He was itching with both trepidation and excitement, and really — how were you supposed to think and function when a celestial being was in your room? The angel’s presence thrummed in a strange way — raising an air of disbelief into his home, making the tiny hairs on his arm stand on end and tugging at his soul, making it feel strange and bereft, suspended in space. 

He moved around, running his hands up and down his arms, pacing as he muttered and eyed the angel’s rising, naked chest. Actually — _all_ of him had been naked, and it had alarmed Lalli at first — but he quickly fetched any spare clothes he had laying around in the home, and found an old pair of pyjama pants that Onni had left lying around. After cleaning the wounds that bled and seeped little embers of light, flesh so smooth and warm, Lalli felt almost _scared_ to touch the angel — he had dressed the wounds, even the _wings_ and clothed the angel quickly. Which was hard, to say the least, for he was stocky and heavy, and his wings did not make things any better. 

Now he felt restless as he eyed the being, trying not to feel out of place about having a stranger in his home. Rarely did people ever come inside, not to mention _angels_ , and it made him feel pressured, giddy, threatened. 

A ringing of the telephone broke through the silence and Lalli hissed, jumping in fright. He glared at the wretched telephone, just outside his bedroom door that was wide open. He briefly glanced at the angel who barely moved in the corner of his eye, before he moved to curl his fingers around the damned object.

“ _What?!_ ” he spat into the phone. 

“ _Lalli? That’s surprising — you actually answered in the morning! You’re usually asleep by now!_ ” Tuuri was chipper and bright as always even through the phone and — 

“Morning?” Lalli glanced to the grandfather clock, swinging its pendulum in the corner of his room. He cursed. He hadn’t slept through the night at all, and had been watching the angel since he had appeared. Not like anyone could blame him, though. The angel was frightening, beautiful, and intriguing, in and of itself.

“ _Ah — there’s the Lalli I know. But yeah, it’s already morning, stupid. I just wanted to check on you to see if you came back home fine! But now that you’re awake, I’m worried…_ ” 

“No, nothing’s wrong, Tuuri,” Lalli ground out. 

He heard her sigh. “ _But the last time you were awake till morning — you had a few night ghasts haunting you! I know that was months ago, but still! You should get more sleep, you know!_ ”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“ _Are you sure?_ ”

Lalli did not notice a pair of angelic eyes fluttering open, or a figure moving on his bed sheets. He didn’t noticed until he was saying, “I _am_ —”

And a glowing, golden light emanated from his room, and a few yelps and groans resounded. Lalli covered the phone, turning around as he caught the eyes of the angel, and the angel, tangled in his bed sheets, wobbling so horribly with his injured leg, dropped back down onto the floor, in pain from moving. His anguished eyes looked back at Lalli.

“ _Lalli, who was that? That wasn’t you, was it?_ ” 

Lalli bared his teeth, glaring at the angel with an order in his eyes to _lie. Down._ “Go back to bed!” He marshalled through clenched teeth, trying not to raise his voice. “You need to rest!” He did not know if the angel understood him, but if he did, he was stupid and breathed out a _loud_ sigh, clenching his own teeth as he fixed himself back onto the bed, mighty wings folding stiffly and twitching as he crawled under the sheets. Lalli watched the wings for a second, transfixed. 

“ _Lalli Hotakainen — who is with you at this moment?!_ ” 

“No one, Tuuri!” He lied, though he didn’t know why he was lying. He wasn’t exactly keeping his search for angels a secret — but _no, no_ , this was too early. This was Lalli’s. This angel’s existence was his to keep, for now. 

“ _Are you sure? Lalli, did you come home early because you had someon—_ ”

“No, I didn’t, _stupid_! I didn’t come back home for someone!” He glared at the wall he was facing, as if he could see Tuuri there. “I have to go now! Just call me for the wedding next time!” 

He slammed the phone back into place, calming down his breathing as irritation bubbled beneath his skin, making ants crawl all over his body. He sighed, before he remembered the angel in his bed. Then he turned around and marched back into his room, eyes flinty and tongue sharp like a viper’s. The angel looked up at him miserably, still glowing and oh so radiant, but expression so pitiful and tender, Lalli couldn’t help but feel moved to help him. He sighed begrudgingly.

“Don’t you know _not_ to move when you’re injured?” He spat as he moved the angel back into place, the warmth of his skin seeping into his clothes. Lalli normally did not like touch, but this was different. He had to move the angel back. But the warmth was very tempting and made him want to linger.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to bother you,” the angel spoke, voice melodious and remorseful. A bit hoarse, maybe, from just waking up — and so terribly soft. Hearing another voice in his usually empty home made him feel strange, but it did not grate on his nerves.

“Well, don’t move, I’ll have to fix your bandages,” Lalli told him, spine tingling from the knowledge alone that the angel was _talking_ to him. That he was alive and _awake_. And a bit pitiful looking with that sad, lost look in his eyes. Lalli fetched the new bandages with silence, and made sure to watch the angel out of the corner of his eye. But he was looking around in wonder, blinking at the room, taking everything in. The wonder in his face was endearing, and Lalli studied it, glanced every now and then, curling his toes on the hardwood floor. He looked away when the angel decided to study him instead.

“Where am I?” He finally asked, staring at a map on his wall after he was done with Lalli. The map was not of the land, but the stars in the sky, and everything Lalli had charted for possible windows. It was a wide, blue thing pinned onto a corkboard, lit by naphtha lamps. 

“My room,” Lalli answered. 

“Oh, I see that, but I meant —” Lalli looked at the angel, brows raised, and the angel faltered, wide eyes looking down and hair falling beautifully into place to curtain his embarrassment. “Ah, never mind. Excuse me...it is a stupid thing to ask. Everywhere is earth to all of you…”

Lalli hummed, filing the knowledge away as he drew close, moving with purpose to reach for the angel’s injured wing, but then the angel jumped from his reaching hand, looking a bit frantic and scared and — Lalli understood the look, and withdrew. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he reassured, drawing his hands back. “I bandaged you. Look.” 

The angel looked down at himself, at the pants he wore, and the bulge of the bandages on his arm, his shoulder, his legs. Lalli had needed to do a few stitches on his shoulder, where it looked like a bullet had grazed the angel. Hopefully, the stitches had not torn and were efficient enough. 

The angel looked up at him, eyes wide and hopeful. 

“Not harmful,” Lalli reassured one last time. “Safe. Wanted to help.” 

The angel sighed, like a mighty string suddenly loosened itself from a tight grip, and he sagged, wings fanning out and curling around himself, to shield the way the angel covered his face with his hands; breathed into his palms and murmured to himself. Lalli wondered if he was praying, or if he was mumbling repentance. But whatever he was doing — it was calming himself down. It reminded Lalli of when he would cover his own ears when things became too much for him to bear.

Then the angel unfurled his wings, looking at Lalli with such gratitude, that it melted into the air, into his mouth that he could _taste it_ — and his heart and soul trembled with the immensity and force of the feeling, twining into the air, filling the gaps of his soul. Lalli held his breath, as his very soul trembled in front of the creature — that was both mighty, yet battered, in front of him. The gratitude of the angel alone felt like he was laying down his own life before Lalli. 

“Thank you, _thank you_ ,” the angel said, moving painfully, reaching the distance between them, holding his shoulder, his face, searching for something, drinking in all of Lalli’s features as if he hadn’t seen a face in years. And all of a sudden the force of his forehead was pushing against Lalli’s, engulfing his face in warmth. A loving gesture. “I have travelled so far — I could’ve sworn, I was seeing death before me, and you saved me, I can’t thank you enough. Can’t thank you _enough_ , how much it means to me. I still have a purpose, and you — _tell me your name_.” 

Lalli did not know how he was breathing, with the angel’s wings enveloping him softly, hands holding his face, tethering him down, yet making him float so high — that he could reach the zenith of the clouds, the sky, the stars in the firmaments. His heart was beating fast, his mouth fell open and he said:

“Lalli,” it was said in a gasp. 

“ _Lalli_ ,” the angel repeated his name with so much care, so much gentleness, Lalli could cry. “My name is Emil, Lalli, and I thank you, _thank you_ ,” the angel smiled, so blindingly, that before Lalli knew it — his mind was blank, the world was quiet, and the angel was now kissing him in thanks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't intend for the chapter to end that way but it did, and I do not regret it. i am simply evil, to others and to myself


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _What is it you're waiting for?  
>  You've got a chance to say it all  
> Tied your tongue and fucked it more  
> Glad you're not me  
> Cornered by your self obsession  
> The hardest way to learn your lesson  
> (Is learning from me) ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Sober, by Aquilo ******_  
> 

Emil had forgotten how strange humans were with their manners, and their contact and intimacy. Some worlds were different, after all; social cues and etiquette shifting with the world, and in their tides of history and culture. In this half-dead world, he probably shouldn’t have kissed Lalli with his gratitude — but his gratitude had been _immense_. A sharp face, so alive and expressive and not crude, and gentle had been there to wake him up and care for him. A kind face was something he hadn’t come across in realms since he had parted from Xaphania, and had punished himself for his cowardice. 

_Safe_ , Lalli had said, _wanted to help_. 

Emil had felt a rush of devotion at the words, since he had seen so many cruelties in the world. Had seen so many closed windows that lead to destruction; to decay and death; entities that fed on humans and souls, and different beings. He had missed people so much, and missed the love and skinship of others, that his heart brimmed with joy.

The lips against his were chapped and soft, and it was awhile, or maybe by Lalli’s standards, it had been too long, because Emil pulled away with a blink and bewildered frown as Lalli made a sound, a muffled “Mrrrrrr!” that sounded a bit indignant and embarrassed. 

“Lalli?” he ventured, when Lalli stared at him, as if a ghost had just gripped his soul. Emil would’ve thought him dead if it weren’t for Lalli’s red ears, his beating heart that thrummed into his own, and his rising chest. Emil worried. “Lalli? Are you alright?” 

Lalli curled away from him, backing away and raising his shoulders to his ears in a hunch. “We don’t — we don’t _do_ that —”

“You do not kiss in gratitude?”

Lalli made a sound to rebuke, but he paused, eyes blinking at Emil with equal amounts of fury and confusion, Emil was nervous that the human would explode in a burst of emotions. Instead, Lalli made a sound in the back of his throat again, cringed away from Emil, and shook his head. He looked confused and violated, and Emil’s heart lurched. 

“I apologize, Lalli!” He tried, reaching forward, before thinking it better that he not touch the man. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable! I promise, I will never do it again! Please, let me make amends! Please, I did not wish to offend you!” He had more amends to make to the dead than to the living, but Lalli had saved him, and were it not for the authority being dead, he would’ve been scared to have sworn fealty to Lalli. 

It took some time for Lalli to stop hunching into himself and start communicating again without cringing in disturbed confusion, but Lalli was finally looking at him now, with a slight glare, after much pleading from Emil. 

“Just — don’t _do that_ without warning me,” he bit out poisonously and Emil, nervous and not wanting to offend Lalli, nodded in understanding. 

“Of course, of course, I’m sorry! I won't do that again.” 

An awkward silence fell between the two as Lalli began to check Emil’s bandages, the blood and the dusts of light that seeped through. The redness of Lalli’s ears gradually went away, and the silence grew comfortable as time went on and the light behind the curtains of the window became bright, signaling midday. It was not long before one of them decided to break the silence. 

“Where did you come from?” Lalli asked as he kept the extra bandages and vials of ointment. Emil watched his deft fingers the whole time, the way his delicate human hands methodically checked his wounds. 

“Another world.” 

“Clearly. But through where? Are there many more of you?” 

“Vast billions — maybe, once before. The great war must’ve wiped many of us, though. I might be the few high-ranking angels left. And I came through a window, from a world of vast forestry. Its name is one I do not know.” 

Lalli looked at him closely, and Emil looked back, showing the earnest truth. 

“It’s been decades — around ninety years since the Great Ripple happened, and angels visited our world. Why? And you mentioned a war — a war in where?” 

Emil frowned at this. “You have not heard of the _second_ great war? One that followed _after_ the war in heaven?” 

Lalli’s eyes lit up in recognition at this, and he nodded. “A historian told me in passing there was a second war in another world. He said it was just a myth.”

Emil smiled deprecatingly. “Well, it isn’t. I had been a coward to join the war, you see, and have ventured into many worlds to escape it. I thought my friends had gone to hide, too, in order to live and survive. It appears I’ve been the only coward this whole time.” 

Lalli had nothing to say this, for he did not know Emil and was not sure if he would want to share more about himself. Emil knew this and didn’t say anything further, allowing Lalli the reins of the conversation. 

“Why were you hurt?” Lalli asked after a while, his med kit now fully kept and set aside, as he sat curling into his cushioned chair delicately with a pillow hugged to his chest. Emil, wisely, did not comment on the adorable human site. 

“I was escaping another world from hunters. I was meant to close a window.” 

“You’re closing windows?” 

“It is my duty,” Emil said, before yawning — a horribly vulnerable gesture that made Lalli blink in surprise, breaking the ethereal nature of the angel. Emil smiled tiredly at Lalli’s surprise, leaning back into the pillows behind him as he curled his wings, slightly inward. “I close windows — to amend. And ask forgiveness.”

“From who? The Authority?” 

Emil did not snort but he smiled with humor. “The Authority is dead, Lalli. The second great war has ended long ago — and the authority has fallen.”

Lalli widened his eyes at that, sitting up almost violently. 

“What do you mean?” 

Emil closed his eyes, feeling exhaustion take him. “I am no longer governed by a god. Only by my grief.” 

  
  


* * *

Lalli’s mind ran with Emil’s words, racing into every direction possible that he felt stuck in place, not knowing what to do, what to say. He sat at his study, staring at his papers speaking about: the Authority, their rules, their kingdom, interreligious dialogue, which apparently, to the high ranking angel, had fallen and died from their place on high. They were no longer governed by a great, omnipotent being, and the worlds had not collapsed. Lalli wanted to ask Emil more of what had happened, but he already said he wasn’t part of the war, didn’t he? What else could Lalli glean? 

Lalli looked at the angel that lay on his bed, resting. 

He sighed into his hands, deciding that he’d throw away his paper into the bin later, declare god dead in the morning, and figure out what he’d do next after a nice rest. It wasn’t that different from his everyday routine, anyway. Except, he now just had an angel-sized problem resting on his bed. Who knew how long the angel would take in order to fully recover?

Lalli crept into his usual spot underneath the bed, body suddenly so exhausted and weary. He closed his eyes for a bit of rest. 

He most definitely deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emil, you just can't _kiss _Lalli without warning them, you bastard!!! They gotta be mentally prepared to receive it!!!!!__


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm asking you to stay  
>  Between all these whispers that won't go away  
> It's been a while since you and I woke up  
> We drift in and out, we're up and down on luck ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Just Asking, by Aquilo ******_  
> 

It was a fair day outside, and there were dragonflies whizzing past the windows. His eyes drifted every now and then, as the ceramic tinkling of the tea cups echoing in his small kitchen. He was hunched into his seat, hugging his knees. 

“Lalli,” Tuuri poured tea into her cup, eyes fixated on him. He ignored her. “You’re wasting your life again. I know you are. I mean, look at me, I found my purpose while you’re there in your study, searching the stars for windows. What makes you even think that they’re up there? _It’s a fruitless endeavor_. And now Onni is getting married, while you’re stuck in your small home wasting away what Grandma gave you. What will you even do when we’re gone?” 

It was the same thing again, and Lalli turned away from her, not even caring about her words, as he felt light and weightless. Unbound from his seat as his mind was occupied by something else — by white noise. Inside of his chest, his heart felt frayed and empty. He couldn’t even clench his hands into fists. 

“Didn’t you say the same thing before? You keep saying those things a lot.” He was staring at the window across the room, peering out into the forest just behind his house. He could hear the hum of birds and insects just outside, and his feet felt ticklish in their socks. He could feel warmth on his lips — a foreign warmth. And there were the dragonflies outside again.

“You’re always thinking about the past, Lalli,” Tuuri admonished, her tea full to the brim, spilling over the saucer held in her grip. She was still looking at him. “So what if the expedition failed? That you failed to save some of our men? That you never managed to find a window?” She was unblinking, setting her tea down onto the table. “It will never erase the guilt. It won’t bring grandma back. Angels won’t lead you there —”

“I met one, his name is Emil,” he said despondently, and like a phantom of a memory, he was there, padding into the small kitchen with Grandma Ensi behind him, looking sad and desolate. Lalli felt his heart seize with emotions — grief, pain, joy, love — all drowning in an amalgam of noise and sensation. His skin was crawling, the back of his head thrumming, and he _slapped_ his hands over his ears as the whispers began. 

Ensi was standing before him, eyes sad, disapproving. Broken. “It was all a mistake, Lalli. All a mistake. What was the point of the expedition? I failed, and so you failed. Nothing would ever be right —”

“ _Wake up_ —”

Lalli was wide-eyed, not truly seeing as Grandma Ensi spilled her tears before him — so unnatural and surreal. She _never_ cried before him. Not when she lived, and not when she was near death. Lalli felt himself quiver so violently.

“Do you think you have the right to be so happy? I gave my all for you and Onni and Tuuri, and now you’re wasting it by chasing what you failed to find —”

“ _— up, Lalli! Wake up!_ ” 

That wasn’t true. That was _false_ — a _lie._ He hadn’t failed. There was Emil behind her, wide-eyed, his wings open, staring down at him from over her shoulder. He was the evidence, the answer — what he had been searching for, wasn’t he? How could Grandma Ensi say that?! She would never — not in a million years, not in these wretched decades — say these things. How could she even _know_? She was gone, wasn’t she? _Wasn’t she?_

Lalli whimpered.

“ _Wake up, Lalli_ ,” a voice so soft, so clear, he felt like silk was wrapping around him. He remembered the warmth on his lips, tingling there, making him sink his teeth into it. “ _Wake up, come on now, it’s me, it’s me —_  
  


Lalli jolted awake and stars burst behind his eyelids as his forehead met the bed frame. His body was tingling all over and shaking, lungs heaving in gasps as if it could steal the very life from the air. It was dark underneath the bed, but the only light source came from the hand petting his head, soothing his scalp and trying to comfort him. It rubbed at his sore forehead.

“It’s me — just Emil, the night ghasts are gone now,” Emil was looking down at him from on top of the bed, angelic eyes clear with concern. “I chased them away, the wretched things. Are you alright now? This is your bed — I can sleep on the floor if you want me to! I do not want you to lay in discomfort...Please.”

Lalli dropped his head back onto the floor in exhaustion, glaring at Emil through the slits of his eyes as he allowed the gentle touch on his forehead, so warm and delicate, and he was too tired to push it away. “ _Stupid_ ,” he hissed, “I like the floor better.” 

“You do?”

Lalli rolled his eyes before letting a bony arm lay over his them as he shut out the glow of Emil’s hand. “ _Yes_ , now just stay there. How are you going to heal on the floor, anyway? Are angels supposed to be _this_ idiotic?” 

Lalli frowned in displeasure when he found Emil pulling his hand away. But he kept the displeasure to himself, surprised that he had enjoyed it so much.

“No, we’re not,” Emil said seriously and Lalli almost huffed at the sarcasm that went over him. But then Emil added, “I don’t know _what_ we’re supposed to be anymore. Messengers? Blessings? Gifts? Servants? The Authority is gone — my only duty left is to close windows, yet after that, what do I do? Where do I go? I have travelled to many worlds; seen beauty so immense, you can’t even begin to fathom them! But...what is my _purpose_? Where do I stay? Who would need me now? Would it even matter?” 

Lalli heard the melancholy in his voice, and with a tug of his own heart, he found himself sympathizing with him. Obviously, he did not know the specifics of Emil’s life, but Lalli was not ignorant or oblivious — he could glean the grief in Emil’s eyes just as Lalli could look at himself and see his reflection in the mirror. They both had their losses; their own quest to find a purpose. And the world was vast, filled with so much to love and so much to lose, it was hard to find one single purpose, let alone, be able to achieve it. That was why Lalli searched for the stars and windows at night. That was why Emil searched the worlds in order to close them. 

This was their temporary purpose, but after that, what then? 

“I don’t know,” Lalli answered him tentatively, looking through the mattress, as if he could see Emil through it, laying face down; as if they could be layered on top of the other — like the different worlds pressed together into one fold. Lalli closed his eyes again, turning onto his side to face the gap of the bed. “But tell me about the worlds…” 

“You want me to?” 

“ _Mrrrrrr…_ ”

Emil laughed at the strange noise, awfully jovial for the dreadful hour. “Of course, of course...now where do I begin? Ah, I remember — I visited a world once, covered in a vast prairie, with a sky so clear, when the night falls, you can hear the stars hum. Do you know what they sound like, Lalli?”

“Hmm….maybe…”

Emil’s voice was soft — maybe all angels had voices like this — but his voice was pleasant. Lalli could sleep to it. 

“Maybe one day, you’ll soon hear them. But ah, this world — they have beings with intelligence akin to that of humans, but they do not _look_ like humans; they had a more beastly form, with spikes, you see? And wheels, but they were intelligent creatures, smart ones —”

Emil’s voice was a lovely thing; faint and gentle through the darkness of the room. Not long after that, Lalli surrendered himself to sleep once again. No nightmares came. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we'll get into the thick of things soon. I hope all of you have been enjoying this so far!!! <3333


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Light, pave the way  
>  Life, you're my cage  
> I've been a bad man, biting the hand of fate  
> Fighting for freedom, please don't wait ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Hallucinate, by Oliver Riot ******_  
> 

Emil looked at the curtains that were drawn away from the window, the rising sun illuminating the jagged outlines of the trees as this mysterious world awoke. His body was hurting, his wounds throbbing with a dull ache, but he reveled in it. Made him feel alive. It had been awhile since he simply basked in silence and safety; been awhile since he got a moment to look and reassess the world: swallow the air it offered and the glittering sun that greeted him to a new day. It had been long since he marveled at life the way mortals did — something that angels could not quite grasp. 

He knew he would have to leave eventually, though. There were a lot more windows out there that still needed tending to, especially with this half-dead world. However, his injuries were proving a hindrance. 

“Healing may take awhile,” he told Lalli with apologetic eyes, feeling shame for impeding on this mortal’s life. “I do not know how long until I’ll fully recover, I apologize…” 

But Lalli, surprisingly, did not care. “... _Mrrrrrhh_ ,” he grumbled in that strange way of his, the same way he had asked Emil for a story of the worlds a while ago, “stop apologizing, stupid.” That seemed to be a favorite word of his.

And Lalli had promptly left him to his own devices while he locked himself in his study, doing whatever he was doing, only occasionally stopping by to make sure Emil himself was alive. Emil did not need much food for sustenance. He did not need anything, really, but the room was a void, filled with charts of stars and several books; piles of clothes, and scriptures. Every now and then he found his eyes straying to the study where Lalli locked himself in, and to the speckled map on the wall. ( _He was already missing the presence of the man._ )

His wounds were not as grave as before (for Lalli had done a good job), so he found himself slowly standing up, faltering every now and then as he tried to reach the desk where the map sat above, tacked onto a corkboard. 

He traced the map on the wall and had a feeling that he knew what Lalli was searching for — and this thought brought him once again to the human in question, who had willingly taken him in. The sharp eyes, the boney shoulders and the lips he had kissed. Despite the human appearing so closed and cold — he was there, searching for windows into other worlds. Wanting to see an opening. In a way, Emil was thankful that this person had saved him, but a regret also lay in his heart, because his purpose was to close all those windows the man was searching for.

“You should be back in bed,” the said human had stepped out of their study but Emil already knew that he would. He seemed to keep a schedule of what time to check on Emil. _Strange human._

“Why do you search for windows?” He said instead, leaning heavily onto the desk. 

“Why do you ask?” There was suspicion in his voice.

Emil turned to the human to peer at him across the room. He wondered if humans were supposed to be so steely and sharp like the human before him: so barricaded and closed off — one could only wonder if he were the cliff faces of another world, where the sea crashed upon and begged to peak at its summit, to no avail. Never bowing. Never bending. _Beautiful and strong_.

“It is my duty to close them,” Emil answered truthfully, “and I want no harm to come to you if you manage to find one.” 

Lalli appeared to falter at that, taken aback before his eyes narrowed, almost offended by the declaration. “Why would I need to be protected from it? Why would you _keep me_ from it?” 

“You saved me,” Emil said simply, confused at the hostility. “Is it wrong?...to keep you safe?” 

Lalli looked livid and Emil felt like he’d done something wrong again — which was not hard to believe. Lalli strode to him and he gestured out to the window, where the sun was coming to peak high into the sky, illuminating the forestry that was beyond the window, stretching off somewhere beyond Emil’s reach — tapering off into quiet lands that held no life and only decay.

“This is _my_ world — half-dead, can’t you feel it?” Lalli faced the windows, but Emil had a feeling he wasn’t truly seeing what was before him. “What do you think you’re keeping me safe from? I’ve lived here — my _whole_ life — with monsters, spirits, illnesses. You stumbled in here, _close to death_. What _exactly_ are you protecting me from? I’ve been searching for these windows for _years_. They are my _purpose_ _._ ” 

Emil was struck to silence at that, heart lurching in shame and embarrassment. His throat seized up and he looked away from Lalli, hands clenching painfully by his sides, wounds throbbing — though not stronger than the wound on his heart. 

“I apologize, Lalli,” he tried feebly, “I didn’t mean it like that, to insult you….I was just — I wanted to return the favor, of you saving me…”

Lalli glared at him balefully before relenting, sighing through his nose. His hands ran up and down his arms, before he shook his head, looking anywhere but at Emil. 

“I’ll forgive you...if you tell me more about the worlds…” 

Emil looked up at that, shocked for a moment before hope engulfed his heart, taken aback yet ecstatic with joy. He grinned at Lalli, his stiff, weak wings flapping lightly with happiness. 

“Just the worlds?” 

Lalli finally looked back at him, and his eyes were wide and firm — full of conviction and filled with such a depth, Emil momentarily forgot himself, swallowed by the captivating sight of human desire — for knowledge, for power, for self-gain. A terrifying devotion, yet so beautiful upon a mortal face, Emil did not know where he could begin filling that desire, and how he could possibly quell it with what he had to offer. 

His heart trembled strangely, which had never happened before. 

“Tell me about people; the dead and the living. Where they all live and where they all go. Offer me all that you have.” 

And what was Emil’s purpose — after he would close all the windows to the different worlds? What did he have left to return to, when every opening in the universe would be zipped into nothingness, and he was left to scour the heavens? 

Emil was an angel. Give him a purpose, and he was devoted. 

And for once — this one, he wanted to do so willingly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter, but an important one. 
> 
> And also, I reread bits of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, and I forgot that angels are beings made completely of light and consciousness (though the corporeal ones who are fully visible 24/7 are high ranking angels, so yay, i got that), but agh, if Emil got hurt, he would be bleeding light and dust. No blood. 
> 
> But because I am a snake, and I frankly am too lazy to change details, I say: screw canon. Give Emil a real body.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _We took a walk to the summit at night, you and I  
>  To burn a hole in the old grip of the familiar true to life  
> And the dark was opening wide, do or die  
> Under a mask of vermillion ruling eyes ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Familiar, by Agnes Obel ******_  
> 
> 
> **Warning: A bit of some Religious Introspection on this one; discussion of the Authority (God); normal HDM stuff ******

If one had prophesied that an angel would come down, battered from the heavens to be healed by a mortal and to share their stories in a form of thanks — Lalli wouldn’t have believed it, or at least, would’ve deemed it a children’s fairy tale. Such were the kind that Grandma Ensi loved to tell him anyway, spanning from the old parables, down into the folktales of their kindred. She must’ve told hundreds to him, as they sailed down the rivers of Finland, scoured the forests of their villages; whispered them with her hands over his ears at night, or told them as a lesson as she washed him in the bath. 

Onni did not know her tales as well as he did, and Tuuri had been more enraptured by books than tales passed on by mouth. Lalli could never really focus on a lot of words and letters when he was young, for they were overwhelming things, much too great for him to bear. Now he could write papers, reports, read materials, study maps. He had come so far. 

But he _had_ missed the soft voice of his grandmother. He _had_ missed the tales worded out into the air. ( _Maybe, if there was a world where the dead resided, he could find her._ )

And if he had been young and he was prophesied to be the young man who would heal and share stories with the angel — it was one he was willing to hear and live, now that it was happening, because getting to know someone like this: through stories, tales, and memories, had been something he hadn’t experienced in a long while. Not during the expedition, where he barely understood his crew. Not when they were so near to death, and have experienced loss. It was no place to share stories, when the situation was dire. Not when they were so near to hope, yet so far from their goal. 

This was different. This was better. 

  
  
  


“Imagine — a sky so ice blue, and lands so lush and green, bouncing off light into the air,” Emil never ceased to talk so splendidly, painting pictures of different worlds, as Lalli redressed his wounds and checked his stitches. “Human settlements littered that world, by the foots of mountains, dotted by the rivers, spread out near prairies and small brooks. Not much different to many others, but their homes were colorful things. You could see them through patches of clouds by the distance.” 

Lalli was still getting used to a second voice existing within his home, when usually silence pervaded his private spaces. But now, beneath his bed, Lalli could imagine a different world — a separate window of reality. He could imagine music, sounds, noises from a different life. And what was best about this was that Emil never expected him to talk back and break the newfound cycle of storytelling. 

“ — their young were born in seed pods, however,” Emil told him unendingly, the glow from his figure still quite weak because of his injuries, but growing stronger each day. “And my, they were _grotesque_ things when born — but eventually, they grew, and eventually they’d grow beautiful.” 

His feathers flapped and ruffled as he recounted the story, making Lalli almost snort. 

When Grandma Ensi told stories — all memorized and cut so precisely, leaving no detail unturned, it told him that she was precise, observant, quick, and impersonal. She never inserted what she felt into stories; simply recited, simply warned him, and simply taught him what was important. The only times she ever spoke about what she felt were stories of when she nearly died, or faced a monster in the quiet lands when she was still an explorer. 

Those were enough to tell him that she wanted him safe. Wanted him to be cautious, careful, and observant, as she was. Things that he _had_ to learn. It was easy to glean, since Grandma Ensi understood him more than anyone else. 

Hearing Emil tell stories, however — babbling about the land, the sky, the waters of different worlds, and the other beings he’s seen — he always found the best in them, somehow. It told a lot about Emil: that he was compassionate, kind, curious, and naïve. Lalli could even say that Emil was one who could easily be fooled. 

But then he spoke, as well, of tragedies; of the things he had seen and felt. Lalli didn't have to _learn_ these things that Emil told him about. 

(But it was _Lalli._ Lalli who chose to willingly remember.)

Emil said: “Their brilliant homes can burn like beacons, though. Conflagrations that reach the sky, brilliant flames of many hues and shades. It was the first time I’ve seen a world — so equally cruel and beautiful. It was the first time that my _angelic_ self —” Emil grinned when Lalli rolled his eyes, “had seen such brutality. Could you believe it? Men, women, children, seed pods — _burning_. Beaten. Destroyed. And I tried to help — _wanted_ to, but I was bound by the Authority. Sent to watch. Never to interfere.” 

Lalli pulled back his hand that was cleaning Emil’s stitches. He could feel Emil’s sadness, seeping outward, making his own heart thump with a sudden compassion. It bled from the angel’s bones, seeping his very marrow into the air, to sink into Lalli’s own. Emil’s eyelashes fluttered, and glittered with unshed tears. 

Lalli could only watch and listen.

“And that was also the first time, you see, that I’ve feared something greater than mortal beings. I feared the Authority. Their command. If they were so good, and just — how could they let me watch a slaughter? How was such a thing right?” 

Lalli patted Emil’s shoulder, not wanting the angel to start crying. He didn’t know how to handle a weeping celestial being. Not even himself. And the Authority being _dead_ still had him lost and reeling. He still did not know what to think about it, and could only accept it, and take Emil’s words as evidence.

The angel looked up at him from his reclined position on the pillows, and the open windows let afternoon light filter through, blessing the angel even more than what was strictly necessary. Emil smiled wanly. 

“But I’m here now, see? At least I still am.” 

He was. And it told Lalli that Emil was a compassionate, stupid, reckless man. 

Lalli returned to checking his stitches, humming.

What other stories could the angel offer? What else did he want Lalli to know? 

( _How much was Lalli willing to take?_ )

* * *

“There are these little creatures — about the size of our hand,” Emil was saying as he flipped the pages of a random book that Lalli had dropped into his lap. It was a morning filled with drizzling rain outside, gloomy and dim, casting a haze into the room. Lalli was underneath the bed again, eating biscuits as he listened. From time to time, Emil would lean over and meet his eye — to watch him, to which Lalli would look away from the warm gaze. “And they have little spikes — ah, I mean, spurs at the back of their heels, poisonous things I tell you. One poke of those things can cause _immense_ pain. A full dose can kill a large man.”

Lalli, unbeknownst to him, was sinking more and more into the comfort of Emil’s voice. It was becoming a fixture now, his presence in the air, his weight on top of the bed, the warmth he emitted. It was hard _not_ to be drawn to the angel, when one such as Emil, was a talkative thing and had such enthusiasm in his bones. 

Not many had ever gotten this close to him this way — though this indeed was a very _unusual_ situation — still, not many could make Lalli feel safe. Maybe because Emil was an angel; a being of light and kindness, or maybe because he was a clumsy being, with emotions laid out on his face and every gesture, it was hard to think him deceitful and dangerous. 

But it was good to have a being like this close. The night ghasts weren’t as frequent, his home wasn’t as dim and lonely; for once, he had something else waiting for him besides his maps, grandma’s telescope, and Tuuri’s calls from time to time. 

He felt content for once — just existing, without needing a definite purpose to fulfill the rest of his days. 

“They were proud little things, egos bigger than themselves. Very skilled spies, too. They rode on little dragonflies that were many vibrant colors, and they bred those dragonflies themselves! The dragonflies have to see the face of their Gallivespian first — _oh_ , I remember the name of those beings now! Gallivespians! Anyways, they need to see the Gallivespian who bred them first in order to obey them. I had the unfortunate luck of being the first thing a newborn dragonfly saw.” 

“Poor dragonfly,” Lalli said quietly.

Emil looked over the bed to show his offended face. “ _Rude!_ ” 

Lalli muffled his snicker by biting into another biscuit. 

And Emil grinned, shaking his head in laughter, the curtain of his hair swaying so softly. “I’m not _that_ hideous,” he huffed haughtily, “but the poor thing...I had to leave it behind. I don’t know what happened to it now, or if it had perished in their world.” Emil’s brows were pulled down in sadness. “But I hope that it has passed on peacefully...I hope that the Gallivespians died their proud deaths as well. They can only live for around a decade, you see. Not much to a human, and even less to us angels.” 

Lalli didn’t know what to say, or how he could comfort someone who grieved over every little thing. But — he held out his hand, and with the awkward position, it was hard to figure out how — he patted Emil’s head, fingers touching his crown with inexperienced movement. It offered comfort all the same. 

And Lalli’s breath caught. 

Emil was looking at him, eyes rounded near the edges, crinkled in a smile. He had never seen a face so clearly before, being touched by his hand, looking over him with nothing but joy. 

He pulled his hand away, and cast his gaze aside, overwhelmed. His heart was a ball of emotions — fighting itself, beating too hard. The stupid angel _must_ have strange powers over him.

“Soon, I’ll tell you,” Emil promised as he lied back down on the bed. Lalli closed his eyes, trying to focus on breathing, and not the second voice in his home. “I’ll tell you where their souls go.” 

Lalli sighed. He opened his eyes to the dim morning, holding him to that promise. 

“You better.” 

* * *

  
  


Lalli, despite being a private person who was very strict about all of his things — like the textures of his clothes, the space underneath his bed, the particular placement of his mugs on the counters, and the amount of interaction he could take in a day — he could not stay angry when Emil took the maps from his desk. When Lalli had laid it out, spread it in comparison to the map of the stars on the wall, and exhausted himself with remembering previous reports where the windows had been said to be, he was too tired to be angry when the angel bustled next to him. Outside, by the balcony doors, the late morning shone.

“You said you were a Theologian?” Emil had asked him, but Lalli could only grumble tiredly, looking over the back of his seat as he set his chin on his folded arms. 

“I shall take that as a yes,” the angel surmised, looking at the map studiously. “Studying the Authority as a profession, I believe, is quite admirable, but he lost his power, you see — many years ago. I do not remember anymore.” 

Lalli tilted his head to look at Emil, eyeing his beautiful golden hair. “...what was the Authority like?” 

Emil broke his eyes away from the map to look at Lalli, assessing him — weighing the worth of his words, how he could arrange them. “The Authority was _ancient_. Old and withered from the eons that had passed and they... _used_ to be strong, formed the same way we all were from dust — but they were simply the first — to gather consciousness of themselves. Think of them as the Highest Angel, perhaps, who had been born when atoms did not know they were atoms yet.” 

Lalli did not have the mental faculties to take that information in yet — for it was much too soon. Much to boggling and grandeur; the fact that: “So there was no actual Authority?” He sat up in his seat, and properly said, “ _God?_ ” 

Emil frowned at this, clearly looking unsettled from the topic. The grasp of the Authority’s rule had not fully escaped his bones yet. “Perhaps there _was_ God, or perhaps there never was, in the first place—”

“Too many perhaps.” 

Emil smiled blithely. “Yes — too many, but, the Authority had dubbed themselves god, for they were the first. Then many other angels came after them, and they hailed the Authority as the creator of many worlds.” 

“A lie.” 

Emil spread the map out onto the desk, looking at the half-dead world that he was currently in. So much dead land — so much destruction from the windows rippling and changing. Lalli’s simple statement made Emil pause.

“I am afraid that is true,” he said hesitantly as he frowned at the map, “but there are many lies in the world. Many beautiful things which are not true. I am an angel, but — I am far from what the scriptures and holy texts write me to be. I _cower_ , Lalli. I was selfish. I have left my friends behind and was too scared to fight.” Lalli did not say anything to this. “In worlds where the Authority is absolute, why must they enforce the truth that it causes so much death if it weren’t a lie?” 

Lalli buried half of his face into his arms, eyes looking at Emil’s face for any small twitch and movement. “Some would say a trial of faith. To strengthen their belief.” 

Emil looked at him then, disapproving. “You do not believe in that.” 

“I do not know what to believe in anymore.” 

Emil sighed, nodding. “...neither do I…”

Lalli unfolded his arms and tucked his knees underneath his chin, looking at the map Emil kept from rolling up on the desk. “Did you love the Authority? _God?_ ” 

Emil became silent — and if Lalli had been a lesser man, he would’ve admitted that Emil, in his silence, looked so awfully _compelling_ ; lovely to look at, which by Lalli’s standards, _was beautiful_. But this was Lalli, so he would take that to his grave. 

Then the angel moved, a small sweep of his hand onto the dead lands, before he tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear — a gesture Lalli saw with full clarity. 

“I do not equate fear with love,” Emil said honestly. 

Those words struck Lalli soundly.

A silence descended between them, awkward and misplaced, for this was no dialogue that Lalli had written about before, concerning the Authority. Not the same ones Grandma had studied, researched, and left behind. This was about their deep set beliefs, being turned on its head, suspended in the air. A cosmic truth that had been a lie all along, and all Lalli had to go by was the words of an Angel. 

“You’re not going to write all of this down, are you?” Emil asked tentatively. “I do not mind it, but I’ve seen worlds that have persecuted — well, _heretics._ It would cause me great pain if you were harmed.” 

Lalli was willing to snort at being called a _heretic_ , but he looked up at Emil then, seeing the care in his eyes that made him feel very strange — for they just had an introspection of great magnitude. His mind was too tired to process the angel’s compassion. Everything was just — _too much_. 

“What’s the point?” Lalli grumbled, digging his palms into his eyes. “I have no evidence of his death to show. And — it doesn’t matter, anymore. No one will believe me. Better to just —” he gestured to his desk and the corkboard exasperatedly, “ — search for windows. Become an explorer again.” 

Emil smiled humorously at that, looking at the map of stars on the corkboard. “An explorer? Of stars?” 

Lalli rolled his eyes and tapped the map on the desk. “And open windows.” 

Emil hummed. “I cannot show you where they are, for it seems like most have been closed. And I believe they’ve caused so much destruction to your world,” he cast a sad gaze to the different countries on the map, dark and outlined with red, next to the bright countries, outlined in pink. 

“I can tell you that the worlds, however, are layered on top of one another.” Emil smiled, flushed with joy at the prospect of more stories to tell. Lalli’s toes curled.

He drank in the sight and listened intently. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope that wasn't too much? And agh, I'd love to know your thoughts about this!!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Do you want me on your mind or do you want me to go on  
>  I might be yours as sure as I can say  
> Be gone be faraway ___
> 
> __- **Fuel to Fire, by Agnes Obel ******__

Lalli hadn’t thought he was so forward when he asked Emil about the dead. It was a cloudy afternoon when he asked this, tracing a map of the stars once again with Emil’s talk about layered worlds overtaking his mind. This was after he had a small conversation with Tuuri on the phone ( _“I bought several suits for you Lalli — you’re really tall and lanky, so some suits might be a bit bigger than we thought. They don’t exactly have a_ size _for tall and lanky.” To which he replied a profound, “Mrrrr.”_ ) The thought of attending a wedding made him want to sink underneath his bed and disappear, because there would be _people_ , loud music, sitting elbow-to-elbow with strangers, and — _gods forbid_ — small talk. But, he had already promised Tuuri that he would be going, so he couldn’t back down now.

The thought of disappearing made him look at the corner of his desk, where a small photograph lay in a dark lacquered frame. Familiar faces looked back at him — his own, infant self, being held by his grandmother as his mother and father stood behind her, smiling bright and happily. A time that was long gone; a moment in time Tuuri had said would be appropriate for him to keep. Looking at the photo however, always made him feel conflicted and empty — a bit lost. 

He reached for it and made it lie face-down. 

He had a feeling that Emil had looked at it, for the picture never showed its face when Lalli was sat at the desk. 

“Where do people go when they die?” He asked Emil absently as he stared at the frame underneath his hand, not truly seeing it, as he anticipated Emil’s reply. 

Emil, who had been humming underneath his breath, fell silent. Lalli turned around in his seat, raising his brows at the angel. 

“Well?” 

Emil was looking at him, brows pulled in his own conflict and worry, sat up on the bed with his wings up and ruffled. 

“Are these one of the windows you are planning to find?” 

Lalli blinked, looking away from the angel to stare at the map on the wall, sitting above like a tapestry of his life, branching off, inlaid with many possibilities. He couldn’t lie to the angel when Emil was already so earnest with him; sharing stories, and memories, and parts of himself that Lalli did not know he needed, but somehow, remembered with a strange fondness. ( _Like how Emil loved to fix his hair when he told stories, or how he wrinkled his nose and his wings bunched up when he recounted terrible times._ )

“I was thinking about it…” 

Lalli heard the covers shift, the frame of the bed creak, then there was rustling — clothes and feathers moving. He looked back to see Emil drawing near, glowing in the dim room, his steps a bit hesitant. But he reached Lalli, his warmth enveloping him and the space on his desk as he stood behind him, one hand holding his chair. His naked chest moved with his slow breaths. 

Emil said, “I do not wish for you to go there...but yes, I know where it is — the land of the dead. It is another world entirely. It is where _all_ souls go when they die. All the good, all the evil. Nothing goes to heaven or hell. There is just death, and there is just darkness and loneliness.” 

Lalli did not know what answer he would be getting, but this one did not make him feel better. In fact, it made him more lost and unfocused — _his mother, father, grandma Ensi, uncle, and aunt_ — all in one place, drifting. Could they all be staying there? Waiting for him and his cousins? Could darkness erode memory? Could a lonely, dark place such as that be the place where their souls belonged? That couldn’t be — _that couldn’t be_ — 

But then Emil’s hand sifted through the hair on his head, breaking his thoughts and catching his attention. He was smiling. 

“At least, that was until the second war ended,” he said. 

Lalli glared and wondered how well an angel could take a mortal beating. 

Emil laughed at Lalli’s expression and shook his head, eyes glancing back to the map on the corkboard. 

“An angel — her name was Xaphania, told me that one window could be left open across all the worlds. Only _one_. The land of the dead. All souls, in their time, will get there eventually. But when they arrive, they can go to the window and decide for themselves to stay in the darkness of the land of the dead — or become part of the universe once again: the air, the land, the water, the skies. So they will never die, so that they can live on and continue breathing.” 

Lalli relaxed at this knowledge, hearting calming down from its horrible squeeze in terror. He relaxed in his seat, leaning into Emil’s hand. “Do you think you can take me there?” 

Emil snatched away his hand and Lalli looked up at him, face pinched in displeasure, but Emil was shaking his head frantically, eyes furious and pained. Lalli drew his brows together, worried and unsure, as he reached for purchase onto Emil’s hand, wanting to calm him down. 

Emil took it as permission to crouch and lean in close, and Lalli froze up momentarily, as his face was so near, like that day when Emil had kissed him in gratitude — and everything was _far too much, for too near, far too warm._ But Emil’s eyes were looking at him as if he would be pained by Lalli if he did something so stupid — and maybe he _would_ be. Maybe he _was_ — and the knowledge of this made Lalli’s heart thump and made his toes curl. 

Emil set his chin on top of Lalli’s head, mumbling something, as his hands held his face softly, nestled in the space of his palms. His voice vibrated across Lalli’s body, filling his bones with the very same anguish Emil felt. 

“ _Please_ don’t ask that of me,” Emil pleaded to him, and the anguish in his voice was so great, Lalli could practically taste it. “I’ve seen enough people die already, please…” he pulled back from Lalli to shake his head at him. “Only those have died may truly step foot there — and I cannot bear being there before I’ve fully apologized to the people I’ve lost. And _please_ , do not go there when it’s not your time. _Please_ — promise me that, Lalli.” 

Lalli thought that Emil was in no place to make him keep great promises — but there Emil was. A face, a set of hands, a pair of wings, a perfect bubble of warmth — pleading him to stay. 

Lalli felt tongue tied. Felt as if he had been kissed so well and deeply, it burned into his soul ( _though he had only been kissed once, and that was by Emil_ ). 

He hated how _wretched_ it felt — how full, and untethered it made his soul feel. His purpose was to his grandma’s work; to his exploration for windows and for his search of the different worlds. 

But he had failed as an explorer hadn’t he? 

The Authority had failed to stand, didn’t they? 

Emil was terrible. Made him feel a great many things he had never felt in his life — and right now, one of them was — _he didn’t know_. Didn’t want to name it. 

If he left it alone, he wouldn’t have to think about it. 

“Lalli?” Emil slowly let go of his face, to tuck back a stray piece of hair behind his ear. The touch was gentle, soft, and it was damning. Lalli _hated it_. 

“I can’t promise you _anything,_ ” he finally decided to say, because even though it _hurt_ — this was his life. Not Emil’s. Not something an angel could control. _It was Lalli’s_. No one could ever change that — not by the hands of an angel and not by the death of a god.

And surprisingly, Emil only acquiesced defeatedly — and though he _tried_ to smile for a bit — he didn’t reprimand nor get angry. He only nodded. Took Lalli’s word graciously. Took gentle care to hold the side of his face, before reluctantly pulling away. 

“Of course, I — this is your life. I shouldn’t have said that — I’m sorry, you're right — it’s not mine to control. I can’t stop you.” 

Emil understood Lalli’s purpose, which was more than Lalli could ask for. 

All Lalli could say to that was: “Thank you.” 

( _He ignored how his heart pulled with Emil. How it had never done that before._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this fic a slow burn or a fast burn? idfk anymore


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I write in cursive lines  
>  And I need the help  
> I miss the shoulder of knowing  
> Nothing else ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Cursive, by Billie Marten ******_  
> 

And another day passed, and they pretended that the talk of the dead had never happened. Emil, wisely, did not speak anymore of Lalli’s fascination on windows, and Lalli did not ask anymore of the dead. They simply existed in each other’s space, as Emil took his strength back, gaining his shine day by day. Lalli ate at strange intervals when he wanted to; went to his study to map out more probable windows (with Emil’s due warnings), and occasionally went out to run by the woods, checking the safety of the wards around his home. Emil just kept politely to the room, read the occasional book Lalli offered him, and slept when he had nothing to do. 

Lalli, after much thought, finally relented to allowing Emil into his study.

“— a world much like yours,” Emil was glowing brighter now, wounds now nearly healed, and he could move now without having to limp heavily and Lalli was satisfied with the steady strength returning to the angel. He had a sneaking suspicion though, that his happiness was what made him glow brightly. “But these people have their souls separate from their bodies. _Daemons_ they called them. Beautiful fixtures of themselves — trotting or flying along with them. Fully visible.” 

Lalli hummed as he watched the angel out of the corner of his eye, letting the angel wander around his study for the first time, carefully moving around the bare, personal room lit by the glass dome above them, where the sun was setting. The room was descending into darkness because of this. 

“I wandered among them for a while, because their daemons were curious things. I thought they could sense me, which maybe they _could_ but they weren’t so sure...but where they had visible daemons, other worlds couldn’t see theirs. You can’t see yours, can you?” 

He heard the light flap of wings, and Lalli’s clothes fluttered from the gust. 

He broke away from his telescope, turning his head to look at Emil who was sitting on top of a ladder, playing with a book he had pulled from the large shelf. His wings were open, still stiff from lack of use, but they were massive and strong — Lalli had not quite seen the immensity of them until now. Did not know that they could create strong winds. 

The light of the sunset was doing wonders for Emil and Lalli could not fully break his eyes away. 

“Lalli?” 

Lalli blinked and nodded. “Yes...my grandmother was a Sorceress...she taught me how to see my soul — by simply focusing well — seeing yet _not_ seeing. My soul, you can see — it’s a lynx. I saw her before.” He moved back to his telescope, fiddling with the ends and distracting his treacherous hands. His heart was brimming with something — with the memory of Ensi’s voice and enchantments, mixed with the sight of Emil: his eyes, his wings, his hair. The events of the other day hadn’t fully receded yet from his reverie. ( _Curse Emil, for it seemed like it had not affected him at all._ )

It was all so confusing, so overwhelming. Perhaps his study was becoming too stuffy now, or maybe he needed some time and air — away from the talkative angel. Maybe. _Maybe._

Emil’s wings flapped with delight. “Indeed! Your soul is a lynx!” Lalli could hear the smile in his voice, so wide and present. “She’s so beautiful, did you know that?” 

Lalli’s fingers stuttered over the telescope, faltering as he froze. He tried to breathe, mind working over what Emil just said because he said that: his _lynx_ was beautiful. 

_His soul was beautiful_. 

And the compliment came from a wretched angel, who spoke so earnestly, Lalli’s own heart quivered from the blatant trust Emil beheld. He could not think, could not speak, could not fathom the stupidly open mouth that the angel had. Did he not know how much those words meant to Lalli? To _anyone?_

Or maybe it was just Lalli. Maybe it was just him — for rarely was he called something so pleasant. Rarely was he something that he thought he wasn’t. 

He heard wings flap, gusts of wind rustling his clothes, making loose papers in the study fly. Lalli looked up at Emil who fluttered down from his perch, landing before Lalli with an uncharacteristic grace. Grandma Ensi’s telescope was between them, and glowing bright, Emil looked worriedly at Lalli. There was remorse on his face, so soft and tender and _heartfelt_ — Lalli could sit there and bask in it; drink it from the air. 

Emil’s face was the only thing he could see once again, oh so clear. 

“Did I do something wrong again? _Please_ , did I offend you? I didn’t mean to,” Emil apologized kindly and Lalli blinked in bewilderment, in confusion — before shaking his head a bit too violently with frustration, with _fury_ at the fact Emil didn’t even _know_ what he was apologizing for. What he even remotely _said_ : the words that had made Lalli’s heart soar. Words that sounded like a gift he had to cherish with his all. 

Lalli didn’t even _know_ if he wanted Emil’s apology. 

He didn’t even _know_ what he wanted from him at all. 

( _What Emil had to offer, and what Lalli was allowed to take._ )

Lalli closed his eyes momentarily, too overwhelmed with the sight of Emil.

“No — _no_ , just,” he mustered, before saying, “out, get _out_. _Now._ ” 

Lalli could note exactly when he felt Emil’s pain dominate the air — the way the angel’s eyes widened and flashed with surprise, _with hurt_ , before his wings followed — lowering, curling in, trying to become _smaller_. Emil’s mouth opened to say something, stuttering over different words ( _“I — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to_ ”), eyes afraid to meet Lalli’s. But he thought better of it, swallowed his words, and quietly exited the room, as if he had never been there in the first place. 

And his glow — his glow had _dimmed_.

The room was quiet now, desolate and dark, and lonely. The sun was gone, and the stars were out, and Lalli could see nothing. Lalli’s heart felt empty now.

He leaned his head onto the cold telescope, feeling his eyes burn, the back of his head throb, his heart echo with a sudden depth it never had before. 

He’s never felt like this. _Never_. How was he supposed to handle it? 

( _How was he supposed to handle his heart — making place for someone else?_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another short chap, but an important one, im sorry. 
> 
> and lalli's falling so bad for emil. Ghod, the idiot
> 
> but also, _chapter 9 al-fucking-ready???? ___


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sometimes I feel like I'm lost in a desert  
>  And every dune is the same as the other  
> I see my footprints in the sand  
> So I know where I've been  
> And these steps I take won't go to waste  
> If I'm moving towards something ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **New Discovery, by The Crane Wives ******_  
> 

Living with mortals was confusing, though to be fair, Lalli seemed different enough on his own. Sleeping underneath beds, haunted by night ghasts, a fixation with windows, and a passion to search for the dead. When said, all in that order, it was worrying and alarming to Emil — that this strong human who had taken him in had a purpose, and that was to search for a window to the dead. _Did he want to die? Was that it? Did humans really wish for that?_

Emil worried. For one, he could leave now, heal somewhere else, and never return. He could leave this world and continue on with his task, for he had no business staying here. Had no place to worry for a mere mortal. Whatever they did with their life was theirs. Not his. ( _Lalli had said that, didn’t he?_ )

But his heart... _could not leave_. A part of himself always pleaded for him to stay — to seek the man out. How could he not? He had promised to give all the knowledge of the worlds he could offer. He had promised to tell him of the living and of the dead; what Emil loved and what Emil had in memory. He could pass on his tales to another person. Be given a purpose that made his heart soar and made his wings quiver as if they found mighty winds, to steer them into the heavens. 

When Lalli had looked at him like that — like he was an answer to something, how could he not be so taken? 

He pondered about it, and pondered some more. Even as Lalli had told him to leave the study, which indeed, had hurt him — he kept pondering about it. ( _And he would not be so hurt if he didn’t care, right?_ )

He scrubbed a hand down his face, so confounded by the mystery of this human, his feet led him to the balcony where he had dropped, halfway near to death. He slid the latch off, stepped out into the cold stone of the balcony, and swallowed in the air — some more, and some more — till the world dimmed, and the buzz of night critters came to life. He looked up, and the firmaments were brilliant in this half-dead world. So endless, so deep, he longed for the safety of different worlds — to think and think, because staying here made his heart falter even more. 

Maybe he had stayed long enough?

Lalli might not want him here anymore, after hearing his stories. He was a coward who ran from a war, after all. And Lalli looked to be a brave one, with sharp eyes so flinty and body so cut and sharp, he looked to be a fighter. Someone who jumped into the fray. ( _Hadn’t he mentioned he was an explorer before?_ ) 

But Lalli tended to his wounds, melted into the touch of his hand, and checked on him from time to time even though he was a hindrance ( _and would one do that, if they did not care? Why would Emil’s angelic heart — that had seen so much life, love, death, and birth — beat so hard at this? As if someone had held his heart in their palm? As if his heart never beat for itself anymore?_ ) 

Emil did not know love (this different love, this _private_ love), so he never thought that was what it could ever be. 

He heard the creak of the glass door behind him, and he tensed up, face growing stoic as he stared off into the firmaments. 

Lalli did not say anything, and neither did Emil. They stood in silence as the world revolved around them, chasing away the minutes. Emil had a feeling that Lalli was looking at him every now and then, and he stopped the impulse to look. Normally, one glance was all it took for Emil to gaze back.

Finally, Lalli sighed and it tore at his soul. 

“Are you leaving?” The question was faint. 

Emil’s brows pulled, his heart throbbing, but he did not relent in the coldness of his features. “Did I do something wrong? If you want me to leave, I will respect your wishes and do so willingly. I can rest somewhere else —”

“What?” 

“ — after all, I have a duty to return to. I feel guilty for being a hindrance, Lalli, and I don’t mind it if you want me to go—”

“No!” Lalli burst and Emil finally turned to Lalli, unknowing that the coldness from his features had left him to be replaced with relief in his bones. “ _No_ , not you! Don’t have to go! It’s just…. _no_...” 

Emil did not pry and only allowed Lalli to go on and search for his words. He knew to be patient when Lalli could not find them properly. 

“It’s just... _me_ ,” he finally said with great reluctance, and Emil listened well. “I always get people wrong... _I’m_ always wrong. I’ve never lived with anyone else. Don’t know people well…. I’ve — I’ve never had a — you are —” he cut himself off with a frustrated sound, shaking his head and putting his hands over his ears. He closed his eyes and hunched in on himself, shaking his head a tiny bit. Emil did not understand this action — for he had never seen another human do this in front of him.

Assuming it was the cold of the night, his wings unfurled, enveloping them both in warmth. Lalli did not stop to unfold from himself, however, and fretting, Emil could only set his bigger hands over Lalli’s with a wounded heart, helping to rock him and silence whatever he was hearing as Emil tried his best to bring him back. 

“Shhh, Lalli,” he tried, the words whispered on Lalli’s forehead, “you don’t have to say anything — it’s fine, _I’m_ fine. If you don’t want me to go, then I won’t, come on now. I’m here, see? Don’t fret, don’t fret. Breathe with me — good, come on now, _breathe_.” 

It took a while for Lalli to finally calm down, and when he finally pulled back — looked down at Emil, it was with such a vulnerability that Lalli had never trusted him to see before. It knocked the breath right out of him, made his heart stutter, and made him wonder if Lalli had enchanted him, somehow. ( _Didn’t he mention that his grandmother was a Sorceress?_ ) But _no_ — Lalli would _never_ do that to him, he was sure. He had faith in him. 

“You won’t leave?” Lalli’s voice was whispery — always was — but this was _different_ now. This was delicate, stretching between the small space between them. 

“I won’t if you tell me to stay,” Emil said, heart brimming with something he could never name, making him want to burst and to hold and to _cherish_. 

“You promised me stories,” Lalli finally said, hopeful — that steel in his voice creeping back in, “and you’re not yet healed. Just stay. For a bit longer. Please.” 

Emil was sure of it — that Lalli did not want him gone. Not yet. _Not now_. 

And that was enough to send his heart soaring. 

“I will,” he said it like a promise, “I’ll tell you some more.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another short chapter, I know!! _Im sorry ___
> 
> _  
> _if you have any thoughts, please! let me know!!!__  
> 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In my house the silence rang so loud  
>  Under doorways, through the hallway down  
> Waiting for the secret to grow out  
> Oh what we do when no one is around ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Mary, by Agnes Obel ******_  
> 

The day that Tuuri called him on the phone to prepare for Onni and Reynir’s wedding, Lalli and Emil were out of the house, finally. It was Emil’s idea since that night on the balcony — since his wings had touched the fresh, cold air. His wings weren’t fully healed yet, but it was nearly there, and fortunately, the sun greeted them happily with a bright afternoon, illuminating the forests and the nearby river that ran in the woods near Lalli’s home. Lalli watched Emil as he stepped out into the daylight with him, and the angel — looking around in wonder — finally ruffled his feathers and spread his wings with a shiver. Lalli watched in amusement until Emil winced. 

“Alright?” He drew close, cautiously nearing the angel. Emil, as if drawn to his presence, immediately came to him. 

“Fine, I’m fine,” he nodded, “I just have to regain the strength in my wings agai—”

Lalli had reached out and touched Emil’s wing, the left one that had a stray bullet pierce it — and Lalli, with delicate fingers, touched the feathers gently, pushing into the strong, soft things. He drew his hand back when Emil shuddered — a full body shiver that rippled through his glowing flesh, making the angel inhale sharply. 

Lalli drew his brows in worry. “Sorry,” he said quietly, but Emil shook his head, and with a glow to his cheeks — red like those cherubs, Lalli almost snorted at the comparison — looked away from Lalli, not meeting his eye. He was embarrassed. 

“I am fine — _absolutely fine_ ,” Emil cleared his throat, his wings up and halfway spread bashfully, “now — ah, where was the lake you told me about? You told me about spirits lingering there.” 

Lalli couldn’t help the curl of one end of his lip, feeling the day suddenly grow slow with a force beyond him, as if time slowed down for the both of them to savor as they wandered. With a start, he led Emil into the forest, told him important things: the end of the barricades somewhere, where the safe zone ended, and the quiet lands began. He told him of the wards he had set up along with his cousin; the lake where he sang, sometimes, when nobody was around to bother him. He pointed out the nests in the trees, the berries in the bushes, a bed of flowers, the wards he had carved onto trees to keep the lands safe and purified. He told the angel about his small, private world: something that nobody else ever knew, not even his cousins. Emil took it all in, as if he hadn’t been into other worlds at all. 

His wide eyes and elated smile stayed in Lalli’s mind for the better part of his day. 

He hadn’t really thought that Tuuri would call on that day to meet him that same evening — a call that he had missed while they were at the lake. 

“Do _I_ have any siblings?” Emil asked as he dipped his feet into the water where they sat on a small dock. Lalli nodded as he sat next to the angel, carving out a piece of wood with a hunting knife. 

“No, but they are all my brethren to me,” Emil answered, trailing off sadly, “even though the war separated us into sides. There were two ranking angels though — their names Baruch and Balthamos. Lower ranking angels — dear friends of mine…” 

“Siblings?” 

Emil shook his head, smiling bitterly, “Lovers. And they died for the war. That’s why I’m atoning by closing all the windows for the both of them, because I’ve left them behind.” 

Silence descended between them, filled with the rippling water and the occasional birdsong. Emil was weaving a crown made of wildflowers, hands clumsily twining the stems and inserting through shoots and small knots as Lalli carved away at his piece of birch. Emil’s fingers were a bit green and dewy by the end when Lalli finally turned to him. 

“What about you?” 

“Hm?” Emil hummed, looking at the crown he made with a quiet glow of pride. Lalli’s heart squeezed at the site, _so painful_ , he had to look away.

“Did you fall in love?” Lalli asked this as he carefully handled his knife on the wood — trying not to notice how his fingers gripped tightly onto the hilt, how his spine was suddenly straight and taut — how Emil became silent, wings drawing in with uncertainty. A dragonfly flew by, and a butterfly settled on a flower in Emil’s hand, just on the flower crown.

“Love?” he said so softly, like a caress, “I love the plants, the animals, the creatures, the different worlds... _children!_ Energetic little things!” Emil’s cheeks flushed with adoration as he said that, to which Lalli simply had to take a good look at, and file away into memory. The butterfly flew away with Emil’s movement. “I love a lot of things, Lalli.” 

At this, Lalli felt his heart both soar high, yet drop down with disappointment. This stupid angel of his — _he didn’t mean mundane love! He meant_ that _kind of love! The_ different _kind_ ….Lalli did not know how to word it, shaking his head as he pinched his brows at the ripple of the lake, disturbing the bugs that skipped over the surface. 

“No,” he said with an imperious frown, “I meant….the intimate love... _different_ love...It makes your heart —” he raised a hand to his breast, pressing it over his thick wool sweater, fingers curling in slightly to grip at it “ — beat harder, maybe. Makes your palms sweaty….at least, that’s what Tuuri said.” 

Lalli glanced at Emil to see that the angel was looking at him, and Lalli refused to meet the gaze, hiding himself in the curtain of his hair as he continuously hacked away at the birch — not even knowing what he was carving anymore. 

“Oh,” Emil said intelligently, “I — maybe, I don’t know...is that what they call _love?_ The _different_ kind? I never asked Baruch and Balthamos what it felt like...so I wouldn’t know.” Lalli could hear a frown in his voice, so he risked a look, and Emil was frowning at his flower crown, eyes drawn and wings down in dismay. But then Emil met his eyes, and pinned to the spot, Lalli watched as Emil sat and up and declared proudly, “But one day, maybe I will! Now that the Authority is gone, I believe I’m free to love whoever I want to, now. Someone kind...a bit elusive, maybe, and strange,” Lalli absently filed these words into memory, not even aware he was doing it. “But what about you?” 

Emil was looking at _him_ with curiosity now, and with the angel’s eyes being too much — he looked onto the surface of the lake, counting the sparkles and the ripples, heart in a tangle, as if he had dropped it into the the flow of a river — _rapid and so far from his grasp, running from him_ — beat by beat. 

“I wouldn’t know either...so one day, maybe.”

They were both relieved, yet worried by each other’s answers. When was one day? With who? Who would they even have? The contemplative silence between them sunk down, and the afternoon glow became harsh, making the lake beam brightly and making light glare down the canopy. They left the lake, Emil’s feet wet, and Lalli covered in wood shavings. Lalli played with Emil’s flower crown (which Emil had given him with a _stupidly_ haughty grin), and he did not want to wear it, fearing the delicate thing could break. 

But then, in the thicker part of the woods, Emil’s wings kept getting caught.

“Ow,” Emil winced, and Lalli sighed for the fifth time, reaching out to touch the wing, but he remembered how Emil had reacted earlier and did not know what to do. 

“Can you — can you make them _disappear?_ ” He asked instead. 

Emil blinked in surprise, before groaning, “Of course! How could I forget?!” Emil offered a sheepish smile at Lalli’s deadpan look, before — with amazement — he watched the angel’s wings fold and disappear with a shimmer, fading out of the world like a light bulb going out. 

Emil without wings was....just a beautiful man.

In Onni’s pajama pants. 

Lalli went around Emil, as Emil — abashed that Lalli was looking at all of him _so clearly_ and blatantly for the first time — scratched his head and turned around wherever Lalli went. “I hope I’m not that strange to look at….Uh — what are you doing? Lalli?” 

Lalli waved his hands around where Emil’s wings used to be, and though Lalli did not feel anything, Emil still shivered. 

“I can still feel that,” he said. 

“Oh. Sorry.” Lalli’s face and ears warmed at the knowledge.

They both took the trek back to Lalli’s home in comfortable silence and they entered through the kitchen door — the weak thing, made of wood and screen, banging as they kicked it behind them. They sighed in relief that they were out of the dewy forest just as the sun began to descend, their skin, hairs, and furs pearled with condensation. Emil was wincing at his feet. 

“Sit at the counter,” Lalli told him, and Emil dutifully obeyed. 

“I’m more built for flying, you see. Haven’t tried my feet in a long while,” Emil said with a grin as Lalli checked his scabbed feet, shaking his head with a roll of his eyes at the words. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly and went to clean the angel’s little cuts, allowing Emil to babble away as he fiddled with the flower crown he had made. 

Lalli felt the weight of it on his head as he was finished adding small bandages to the cuts. He blinked and stood up, at height with the normally shorter ( _by a centimeter_ ) angel in front of him, who wouldn’t have been able to sit on the counter if he still had his wings. Lalli tilted his head and the air was thick and slow with molasses and something as sweet as honey. His heart was filled with clouds — and again, he saw Emil’s face with so clearly, so profoundly, he could not look away.

“See? The flower crown looks great! Though if you _do_ get rid of it, I would not hold it against you. I might need a bit of practice with weaving.” 

Emil was reaching up, fixing the flower crown, and it seemed that Lalli was the only one aware of the scant distance between them: how Emil’s wrist emitted warmth, just against his forehead, his cheek. How Lalli’s hands on the counter could just move, to settle on top of the angel’s thighs. How, if Emil could just lean forward like before — like the first time he said Lalli’s name — he could kiss him breathless. 

“Emil,” he said, and it was quiet — _so quiet_ , the way he said it, Emil was compelled to look. 

“Lalli?” he was looking at him, and he blinked, and Lalli was pleased to know that Emil was _finally_ looking at him — as if he was seeing him clearly, for the first time, too. 

“Remember when I sai—”

Lalli had not heard the front door open, and had not even remembered when Tuuri stepped into the house. But she strode into the kitchen at the sight of them and said: 

“Lalli Hotakainen — _who is that?!_ ” 

Lalli cursed in an unholy way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope all of you enjoyed this one! 
> 
> and please, please, let me know what you think!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _There's so much time  
>  For me to speak up, but I keep quiet  
> I'll complicate the most of the mantra ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **Can I Call You Tonight, by Dayglow ******_  
> 

Tuuri never really worried much about Lalli as much as Onni did. Grandma Ensi was always the one who wandered with Lalli and taught him outside of the safe areas, sometimes venturing into quiet lands with him, and even in the unsafe waters beyond the safe river systems. If one knew her Grandma Ensi like she did, one knew that she was safe, responsible, and strict. Tuuri had no reason to worry about Lalli’s well being since he was her spitting image, and though he still had much growing to do, there was no doubt that he would be growing up like her. Would become someone who held her mantle.

But history spiraled differently, following similar events, but never truly the same. 

One spring, there were flowers growing at the edge of their sauna, deep into the wood. It had died over the winter, but the following spring, the flowers grew in the same spot, except they were more of them now, creeping up and over, and she and Onni had to sadly, cut it away. 

In some ways — or maybe in large ways she had never noticed — Lalli grew different from Ensi, from the small, _minute_ mannerisms of his, to the fitful pride he held in his work. She could still see Grandma in the way he stood, the way he listened, the way he explored lands. He could still see Grandma in the way he preferred silence, the way he poured over his work, followed protocol. But Grandma could endure crowds, work with people. She smiled more often with her children around and where Lalli had pride and crackling anger (that eventually died if left alone), Grandma Ensi never got offended fast, and could listen without glaring off into the yonder. 

Tuuri wondered, with Lalli’s case — when the winter had struck his flowers dead. When had she not seen him grow so lonely, so distant, over the years. 

Maybe it was when Grandma and their parents died when the infection struck their island. Maybe it was when they became part of the expedition, when Lalli failed some of their men. 

She was scared for him — that this desolate life would get to him. What if one day, she would come home, and Lalli wasn’t there? What if, one day, she was gone, and he, and _he_ —

She _knew_ , after their expedition, searching for windows was considered a useless endeavor. _A fast way to death._

_That searching for windows was almost a form of suicide._

And Lalli — he longed for a purpose; for Grandma, and his parents, and the connections he once had ( _that had slipped from their fingers_ ). He existed to explore, and to fulfill his duties, and to continue the life Grandma had shown him, so she was _scared_ , she was _frightened_ — when exploring quiet lands no longer satisfied him. When, over the years, after the expedition, he continued charting possible windows and looked to the skies for the impossible.

But what could she do? She was just Tuuri, who knew many languages, and not the kind that Lalli spoke. She was Tuuri Hotakainen, who knew many friends, but not the kind that Lalli wanted to have. 

And all this introspection was brought to life when Lalli had left the party at Reynir’s house. When he walked down that hallway, alone and thin and looking almost lost. 

And though Tuuri _knew_ that Lalli could handle himself, and live the life the way he wanted to — she couldn’t help the guilt. That she had not done enough all these years to help him; to watch him grow up, to help understand him. Help him make friends, see his sadness, and grieve with him (in all the ways he wished to do so.)

And when Lalli refused to pick up her call on the way to his home, she knew, deep down, just phone calls weren’t enough. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Lalli always forgot to turn the naphtha lights off at the front porch, and with a sigh, Tuuri let herself into the quiet home, didn’t bother turning the light off when she saw the afternoon was drawing near to a close, and left her coat by the hangers. Immediately, she felt something off — not in a magical way like Onni and Lalli’s senses were — but in a more: “ _I can hear a voice down in the kitchen, and it’s not my cousin’s_ way.” 

Which was: a deeply _suspicious_ way considering the talk she had with him on the phone about a couple of days or so ago, but she had shook her head at the thought. Lalli _never_ brought people home. She didn’t even think he was into _anyone_ that way.

But maybe she was wrong. 

She turned the corner and her eyes immediately saw the stranger on the counter, with Lalli standing in front of him, between his legs. Tuuri did not question the flower crown on Lalli’s head, or the bandages on the man’s feet, mind more occupied with the fact that they were _so close_. 

“Lalli Hotakainen — _who is that?!_ ” She had screamed on instinct, and Lalli jumped in fright before he cursed lengthily under his breath, making the man in front of him become wide-eyed. Tuuri looked at the man then, and she — _also_ became flustered because he had _no shirt on_. 

And said man was patting Lalli’s shoulder comfortably before hopping off the counter and striding towards her, head held high. He was about to say something — maybe a greeting of some sorts, but — 

“ _Emil_ ,” Lalli caught him by the shoulder, before whispering a few things to him, none of which Tuuri could hear. An understanding was passed between them, and the man looked confused, conflicted, then disappointed before he huffed in defeat, giving Lalli a small grumble. He went up the stairs — to Lalli’s _bedroom_ — after giving Tuuri a wan smile. 

Now Tuuri faced her cousin, who looked much like a displeased cat. 

“Tuuri,” Lalli said in greeting, as _jovial_ as ever. 

Tuuri shook her head, looking up the stairs, and then at Lalli, back and forth. Then she finally burst: “Were those Onni’s _pajama pants?!_ ” 

Lalli rolled his eyes and stalked back into the kitchen as Tuuri began her thoughtful rant. “So I was right, wasn’t I?! You _did_ have someone over, apparently _living with you_ — doing, _I don’t know!_ But that was over two weeks ago, wasn’t it? Lalli, you were with someone for _that_ long? Why didn’t you _tell_ me?!” 

Lalli curled up, hugging his knees on the same spot where the man sat on the counter, hiding half of his face behind the circle of his arms. “Because,” he said, voice muffled, “you make a fuss. Like now.” 

Tuuri sighed. “I just don’t want you keeping things from me, Lalli! You have to tell me about what goes on, because I’m worried about you! You’re alone, in this house! You barely _see_ people, and now there’s _someone_ me and Onni don’t know about? Whoever he is—”

“I’m not a kid.” 

“What?”

Lalli’s eyes glared at her. “I’m not a _kid_ ,” he repeated, and Tuuri’s heart lurched because she wasn’t — she didn’t _mean_ to, but — “I’m grown. I’m an adult. I can handle _myself_ , Tuuri. Don’t make me feel dumb. Or stupid. Or — or _incapable_.” 

Tuuri’s heart squeezed so painfully at that, because she hadn’t _meant to_ — she had thought she was worrying and fretting over him with the best of interest, but, but.... _she had to consider his feelings, too._ She had to listen. She couldn’t watch over every aspect of his life, could she? ( _because she had already been failing that long before_ ) — and he was right. He wasn’t incapable. It was just _her_ — just Tuuri, fretting over Lalli because she had failed to be there for him all those years ago. 

And now, here they were.

“I…” She felt put on spot, “I didn’t mean to — I wasn’t trying to...to....oh, Lalli — _Lalli, I’m sorry_ ,” she hadn’t fully realized that was what she had been making Lalli feel all those years until that moment, as she strode to him, gently set her hands on his shoulders, as Onni would. “I didn’t mean for you to feel that way, Lalli, please, believe me.” 

Lalli looked away from her gaze, burrowing into his arms, though she did not miss how unblinking his eyes were. How shiny they became. 

“That’s what you always make me feel…” he said it quietly — so delicate and thin. Had Tuuri ever really heard his voice until now? 

Her chin trembled. “Oh, Lalli — gods, I’m sorry, _I’m sorry,_ ” her heart shook so bad, wounded over the fact she had been hurting Lalli all this time. “Look at me please, _please_ , look at me,” she asked him, and reluctantly, he did, eyes so wide, she could see herself in them. How guilty she looked. “I hurt you — I’ve been hurting you _so bad,_ haven’t I?” 

He blinked, fingers playing on the threads of his clothed elbows as he said: “Yes,” so frail. The truth of it made her heart hurt. 

“And you’ve been keeping this in, haven’t you?” 

“... _yes_.”

“And you were afraid to tell me? All this time?” 

“...I didn’t know how to.”

Her heart burst at that, and she wanted to kiss his forehead, his little nose, pet his hair, embrace him for every wrong she had done — but she thought better of those actions and just held him at arm’s length instead. _Start with his space._ “Never again, Lalli, _never_. I’ll try my best to change — for the better. I can’t promise I’ll get everything right, but don’t be afraid to tell me things, please? _Please?_ I want to try to be there for you. I want to earn your forgiveness, because I’m sorry. I’m _sorry,_ Lalli. I never meant to hurt you.” 

Lalli stared at her, long and hard — could practically see him turn everything over, working in that way of his, as he swallowed everything in, pondered and pondered and said: 

“Okay,” he leaned his head lightly onto her arm, holding his shoulder. Her heart burst with love at the small, meaningful action. “We will try together...forgiveness isn’t _easy_ , I don't know if I forgive you but...we’ll try.” 

And it melted even more at those words. 

“What set this off, though?” Lalli said after a while, and Tuuri had wiped her tears. 

She smiled sheepishly. “Oh, _many_ things, but our talk during the party was the final thing that made me want to reevaluate and change everything…that, and Onni was finally getting married, and I became a _bit_ protective when I saw —” she gestured vaguely at the ceiling, where Lalli’s room sat above “ — whoever _he_ was.” 

Tuuri raised her brows in question at Lalli then, waiting patiently for an answer. 

Lalli looked away from her, saying, “Emil,” over the rim of his mug where he had poured coffee into. 

" _Emil,_ ” she repeated the name, “and he is…?”

Lalli looked reluctant to say anything, busy fiddling with his mug. Tuuri was about to nag him — but thinking better, she shut her mouth, and tried to give Lalli time. Even though she wanted to grin at the way Lalli’s ears were red.

“Someone….” he said vaguely, “someone important.”

She widened her eyes at that and bit back her grin, because to Lalli, _that_ was already saying so much, even though she still had a few doubts about who he was.

“ _How_ important?” She decided to quiz, watching as Lalli looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see the man, wherever he was. 

Then his voice became soft and delicate — his eyes rounding at the edges, as with a devoted stare into his mug, as if it were someone so adoring, he said, “I'm bringing them — to the wedding.” 

That was what she was already thinking in the first place, but still — Tuuri could not believe that such words had escaped his mouth. That she’d one day see how soft Lalli’s edges could get. She would have to tell Onni that Lalli made a friend — actually, he _had_ someone — and she would have to ask, maybe squeeze out details about the man, but first: 

“ _Oh my gods_ , Lalli, does he even have something to wear for the wedding?”

She almost burst out laughing at Lalli’s spooked eyes. 

( _He had forgotten that he would_ also _be wearing a wretched suit_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20 is the temporary chapter count for now. I really wanted Tuuri's POV somewhere, and I hope this chapter came out fine!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _They won't know who we are  
>  So we both can pretend  
> It's written on the mountains  
> A line that never ends  
>  ___  
>  _- **Dorian, by Agnes Obel ******_  
> 

The silence in the bedroom, without Lalli in it, was oppressive. Emil did not remember when silence became so daunting, or lonely, but there he was now, sitting in Lalli’s desk chair, ruminating by the naphtha-lit desk where Lalli most frequently sat in. It was stupid, really, since all Lalli had told him, before he was forced to escape to the bedroom was: _put a shirt on._ Well, now he had a jumper on (because everything else was too small for him) and now that he had nothing else to do, he was _brooding_. 

And what was worse was that it wasn’t about anything so banal or mundane. 

It was about Lalli, himself — the warmth and the distance that was between them earlier — Lalli’s face, with Emil’s flower crown, and his mortal eyes — _so big. So wide. So telling_. Emil’s angelic heart had pulled, had tangled, had burst, and he did not know what it was telling him, or what it was even _saying_. For the first time, he could taste something sweet and different in the air, and it wasn’t from a patch of flowers, the joy of beings, or the golden dust in the solar winds. 

He could not name it — for it was so lovely, so _treacherous_ , it could make him cry.

And now, he pondered. 

If he had been wandering the worlds, closing the windows, and punishing himself with loneliness — would this desolation be different if he had not met Lalli? Or would it be the same spiral of grief, begging for forgiveness through each endeavor of shutting the worlds from each other? 

Emil wondered about this — about the years he had spent seeing how the windows wreaked havoc across the worlds; shutting them with a small zip of his fingers. 

He wondered if there had been other beings like him. Beings who had crossed the windows — to have found someone so clear, so strange, and so important. To have found someone to care for and adore as alarmingly deep as he did now. To feel like there was a life beyond just their world.

He wondered how many he had shut from each other — those who were and those who _would’ve been_. 

But he knew the truth: that if you stayed in a world that wasn’t yours — stayed there for a while, you couldn’t last beyond a decade. You’d slowly fall ill and die, and what then? 

Emil felt his skin buzz with irritation at the thought and — copying Lalli — he tried to fold himself up, hug his knees, trying to see how this could grant him comfort. This brought Emil to the thought of Lalli again, instead: the proud, dedicated human who searched for these very windows into other worlds. Emil would be lying if he claimed he didn’t half-know why Lalli was searching for them. He could see the way Lalli had hid the face of that picture-frame on his desk, the way he delicately handled his grandmother’s telescope in his study. The way, if he was not doing anything, he would stare out his balcony doors — as if lost and not knowing what to do. 

Then he’d pick himself right up, continue his grandmother’s search, and lock himself in the study. As if he knew nothing else but this routine; this endeavor that seemed endless and dull. 

Emil wondered if this was Lalli’s life — before he had broken that simple cycle. 

He wondered if he felt guilty yet for doing so. 

* * *

Lalli strode into the room with conflicted eyes, and Emil felt relief seeing the man again, hating how contemplative he had gotten with Lalli’s absence. He was about to approach Lalli — feeling strangely eager to hold him, but he stopped in his tracks when Lalli did not look up at him. 

“Tuuri asked me about you...I told Tuuri you’re coming with me,” Lalli had said instead, taking off the flower crown from his head and setting it on the desk as he strode past Emil. 

Emil, a bit hurt and surprised, raised his brows. “To where?” 

“The wedding,” Lalli answered, briefly glancing at him before he turned away, not meeting his eye as he paced up and down the room. Emil watched the human squirm in his own conflict before Emil decided to intervene. 

“Lalli — Lalli, you told her,” he caught the thinner man by his shoulders, gently stirring him around the naphtha-lit room to look at him, eye to eye, “you told her that I’d be going with you?” 

Lalli winced. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to go....” 

_Oh_. Emil realized the problem, and he was about to answer Lalli that it was _fine_ ; he’d been to many worlds, and had witnessed many unions, both in disguise and from afar. But Emil saw the trouble in Lalli’s eyes, the worry that went far beyond just the wedding, the party, and the clothes he would have to force onto Emil. There was a trouble that resided there, deep and painful and Emil decided: 

“And what else?” he asked tentatively, running his fingers through Lalli’s hair, soothing him. “You look far more worried than one should be for a simple union…” 

And Lalli looked into his eyes, seeing yet not seeing — peering at a trouble that was way beyond him. Emil did not know what it was, what it could be, but Lalli opened his mouth, turned away from Emil, could not _bear_ the sight of the angel as he said: 

“I never asked you to go....but do you even want to... _stay?_ ” 

Emil’s heart climbed up his throat, and stayed there. 

Over the weeks, it had been creeping in now, this treacherous thought. He had never thought that in all the years of roaming the worlds, it would take a few weeks, one man, and countless stories for him to long to stay in one place. To half forget his purpose and his grief. 

If one had prophesied that Emil’s fall would be a simple man, he would’ve laughed at the thought, maybe. Would’ve shook his head in disbelief at the thought that a mortal — someone who lived so short, someone who died so young — could hold him down in one place, to grip his heart and listen to him wholeheartedly. As if he was something to be indulged in, and to be taken with due amounts of sips — to be savored. 

But now — he was living it, breathing in the role of the fallen angel, yielding his stories to the young man, surrendering his heart with it — and Emil _knew_. Emil _knew_ that he would have to leave Lalli soon — that he would have to run again, like the coward he was because he had windows to close. Worlds to save. An atonement to fulfill. All the thoughts from earlier came back with a vengeance — _leaving Lalli for his task, Lalli having to return to his lonely life._

Emil _knew_ all this treacherous knowledge, this hurtful desire and purpose and yet — and _yet_ … 

He was a cruel angel, wasn’t he? 

To care for a man whose life was but a cup compared to his fountain? Who could only live a glimpse of Emil’s eons? 

But perhaps the knowledge of this shortness — this little time — was what also made him say: 

“Of course,” he finally said to Lalli, masking the hoarseness of his voice, how his heart quivered, “I’ll have to leave eventually. My wounds will heal soon. The windows have yet to be closed, but... _of course_ , I can stay and accompany you to the union. Just for a bit longer.” 

The answer neither gave relief, nor added to their anguish. Both the angel and the human knew this problem that had been growing between them as Emil’s wounds patiently healed, and it was something they pushed in the back of their minds, in order not to spoil each other’s indulgence. 

And now it faced them: wicked, vile, and sweet, and beautiful. 

A terrible thing. A _lovely_ thing. 

Love and grief was a powerful force and they both knew it. 

( _Which meant neither of them were immune to its power_.) 

And so, it swallowed their hearts, and took them by the hand. 

“You’d have to wear clothes…” Lalli said finally, gazing back at Emil as he took his emotions back and buried them deep, returning to his normal countenance and trying to erase the tension in the air between them. Emil, sensing the change of matters, winced. They both pushed away the vulnerable pain they had just revealed. _Better just leave it for another time._

“Why can’t I _forego_ these garments…” he whined and scratched at the jumper, “they are a bother.” 

Lalli gave him an unimpressed gaze. “It’s for your own good. You angels haven’t passed here for decades...if they knew you were one — they’d catch you.” 

“Isn’t that what you’ve done to me?” He grinned, before freezing at the small hurt that flashed in Lalli’s eyes.

Lalli stared at the angel for a moment and Emil grimaced, feeling it was too soon to have made that jest. 

“Do you feel like I trapped you here?” Lalli asked, voice thin and wary and Emil shook his head. 

“No — no! Of course not! That was a horrible jest! I told you, didn’t I? I am _choosing_ to stay…” Emil soothed him with another run of his hand through Lalli’s hair, “after all, you’d be a bit lonely without me, right?” 

Lalli slapped Emil’s hand away with a huff. “ _Stupid angel._ ” 

Emil laughed, “Strange human.” 

A knock on the door, and Tuuri’s voice was there. “Ah Lalli — eh, _Emil_? Both of you have been in there for a while...I brought some suits along for the wedding! Maybe we’re lucky enough that one of them could fit Emil? Lalli told me you lost your suitcase when you — eh, travelled here?” 

Emil scrunched his face up at the thought of wearing clothes, and the little lie Lalli had said. Lalli only patted his shoulder comfortingly. 

“I have to wear _clothes?_ ” 

“Just for a while,” he said. 

Emil sighed. “I hope so.” 

(Between the both of them: they agreed. They’d rather prefer Emil without much clothes on.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just, please, you two idiots, talk some more about what you feel before yall part, oijoiajodiaodsi


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I swear it is true  
>  The past isn't dead  
> It's alive, it is happening  
> In the back of my head  
> No future, no past  
> No laws of time  
> Can undo what is happening  
> When I close my eyes ___
> 
> _  
> _-_ **It's Happening Again, by Agnes Obel ******_  
> 

It had been awfully easy to convince Tuuri that Emil was a fellow Theologian from another college that Lalli had been talking back and forth with concerning the search of the windows in connection to the Authority. The fact that Emil had extensive knowledge about the windows and the Authority didn’t help (though Lalli _did_ have to warn him not to reveal too much to Tuuri), along with the fact that he looked like a typical ( _though more than average beautiful_ ) Swede from the Luleå Theological Institute. Tuuri knew not to question Lalli too much when it came to him making friends — or well, whatever he and Emil were — otherwise Lalli wouldn’t have answered or indulged any of her questions at all. So she didn’t ask too much, or too harshly.

And Tuuri was... _trying_. She was trying to be tentative with him, and Lalli — he couldn’t help but soften his heart a bit, and though he still had his doubts about their talk the previous night in the kitchen — he was willing to try as well. 

A part of that, he blamed the Angel-disguised-Swede right next to him, who had no right to look so... _nice_ in a burgundy dinner tux (and had _no right_ to be speaking Swedish so well. Lalli did not know how Emil could speak Finnish or Swedish, but he was a being made of dust and _consciousness_ , so he simply _knew, which was stupid_ ). Perhaps spending time with the angel had softened his heart and his barriers — or maybe there was a change somewhere that Lalli had not quite charted in the sky. He did not want to attribute all the changes to the angel because these things might’ve been a long time coming, he never knew.

But whatever it was — it made his heart warm, because suddenly: the maps, grandma’s telescope, and the old books and papers in his study weren’t the only things in his life anymore. 

There was Emil, trying not to squirm in front of the mirror with Tuuri bustling next to him, sneakily interrogating him of details between him and Lalli as she fixed his suit. 

Lalli would never have pictured a life like this, so a part of him was thankful that even for a bit, he was managing to live it. 

Tuuri bumped her hip against him as she went to unzip one of the garment bags to check on another suit she had gotten for Lalli, which half were going to Emil because some had come in the wrong size, fortunately enough. Lalli was thankful that Tuuri had never managed to get his exact measurements ( _as if Lalli would let her close enough within five feet holding a measuring tape anyway_ ). 

“Lalli,” she said underneath her breath as Emil grumbled Swedish (something still so strange to his ears) loudly from the mirror, “how did you get someone so…. _fussy?_ ” Emil was narrowing his eyes at the mirror behind them. 

Lalli looked to the balcony doors and shrugged. Tuuri rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but snort. _Figures_. 

“Well, anyway — here, try and tie this around his collar, so we can see the whole ensemble. He’s fussing a lot with the lapels, so make him stop,” Tuuri pushed the bow tie into his hands and Lalli looked strangely at the piece of garment for a moment before acquiescing, wanting to see Emil’s displeased face. 

“How does one lose their whole suitcase of clothes in the port, anyway?” Tuuri muttered quietly. 

Lalli kept his face neutral at the small lie he had told her and made his way to Emil, batting his hands from wearing the coat to threads. “Stop that,” he said, and slung the tie around Emil’s neck, but then Emil’s warm hands enveloped his, stopping its progression. 

Lalli raised his eyes and met the angel’s, which was strange, since Emil was hiding his angelic glow which all the more made his eyes a compelling thing to behold. Lalli felt trapped in place, caught in a lovely vice. Emil was frowning, and had a small crease in between his brows that Lalli was curious to smooth down.

“You’re not going to asphyxiate me, are you?” Emil murmured quietly, worried. 

Lalli gave the angel an incredulous stare before looking up at the ceiling, begging the deceased god for guidance. “Do you really think I’d do that?” He said in an equally hushed, pained voice, shrugging Emil’s hands off and tying the bow tie — which in all honesty — Lalli was sorely inexperienced at.

“No,” Emil said thoughtfully, “well, not at _this_ moment.”

Lalli snorted at that. “That’s right...If I didn’t want you here, I would’ve strangled you ages ago,” he claimed, which sounded awfully reasonable to Emil, “besides...you’re not wearing _this_ for your funeral if I strangled you.” 

Emil frowned and looked down at himself. “I’d rather wear nothing at all.” 

Lalli, despite the previous weeks of spending his time with the half-naked angel, couldn’t help but feel his ears redden and his blood rush up his neck. Even worse, near the bed, just a few feet away from them, Tuuri had choked silently on her spit. Lalli spied her taking breaths and closing her eyes, as if in prayer, and he wanted to die in mortification, but also couldn’t be bothered to be upset by his stupid angel. 

Emil was looking at him and smiling, reaching up to lightly tap on his red ears. 

“But I’ll survive the suits for a while,” he said endearingly, and Lalli felt put on spot again, seeing his face in full clarity, “but then...after that...I’ll have to go.”

Then, there was sadness in his smile now.

Lalli stared at it, memorized it, swallowed it — and thoroughly _hated_ it. 

Hated how he indulged in this small moment, because now — he would be stuck in it forever. It would live with him until the rest of his days — and what then? What could replace this? What else could make him want to fall like this in his life? Did Emil even _feel_ the same thing he felt? 

Lalli didn’t know. Didn’t _want_ to know, for he’d be gone by then, wouldn’t he? He’d be gone, closing all the windows, stopping Lalli from following him, stopping Lalli from searching for openings in the universe. 

At this moment — he equally adored and hated Emil. 

And he could do nothing but live with it. 

“You’ll have to go,” Lalli agreed reluctantly, masking how closed his throat felt, “but you’ll have to tell me a few more stories.” 

Lalli met Emil’s gaze, a bit hopeful, a bit defeated — _accepting_ of the situation. 

Emil knew that this was the small reprieve they were granted. “Alright, I’ll make do.” 

Lalli’s hands on Emil’s throat, and Emil’s tap on Lalli’s ears — later, down the line, would feel like burning scars. 

* * *

Emil had seen gyrocopters and zeppelins before in other worlds, flown into the fray of war. He had seen the metal skeleton frames of these aircrafts left in the aftermath of the Battle for the Republic of Heaven — the second great war — _the war in another realm_. It had been there where he had felt the dust remains of his brethren. It had been there where his fellow brothers and sisters fought and _won_ ; to end all fate and destiny; fought for a free republic where people lived without the rule of the Authority. (To live, to love, and to birth and to die with whomever they wanted.)

Riding motor vehicles down human settlements under anbaric lights dotting the roads — seeing an airship from Lalli’s world for the first time — Emil had felt it, finally. The feeling of guilt, of deep betrayal, for partaking in this mortal life and existence. Under the rule of the Authority he had gone many years, alienating himself, disguising himself from humans and other beings. Leaving their worldly life alone. 

But then he had fallen in love with the worlds; he had become a coward and sought refuge in this type of life. 

And to be thrown back into it while he had a duty to fulfill for Baruch and Balthamos? 

This warring guilt pried open the wounds of his heart, and stepping into an airship with Lalli felt like a grave sin. Made him feel lightheaded and nauseous. He peered around the armored ship, checking the leather bound seats, the beautiful windows that would frame their skies, and the hazy naphtha lights that would guide them through the evening travel. Emil had peered at the ship’s interior and though it was all so beautiful, deep down in his heart — it felt so wrong and ugly. Emil had wings, had a body made of dust and fabric that threaded the worlds together, and was created to phase through the stars. 

This life was not for him. Clearly — he was not built for it. 

“Are you alright, Emil? You don’t look so well,” Tuuri held his arm as he nervously held the pea coat that he wore — something that was _also_ foreign on his body. 

“Oh — haha, nothing that important, Tuuri. I haven’t gotten used to, uh, _air travel_ this way,” he spoke to the older Hotakainen, warmed by her concern, though he was more than eager to escape and hurtle himself out of the airship. He did not notice Tuuri’s small squint of suspicion. “Ah, where is Lalli? I, um — do you know where he is? This airship is pretty large, I, well, he—”

“Here,” Lalli appeared by his side, exiting from one of the cabins where their luggage and items were supposed to be placed. Emil relaxed under the hand Lalli had pressed against his lower back. “They were touching my stuff.” 

“Lalli, they’re the ship’s _attendants_. They’re _supposed_ to handle our stuff,” Tuuri deadpanned.

“ _Mrrrr..._ not when Onni arranged a private one,” Lalli grumbled. 

Tuuri looked ready to argue, before she relaxed and acquiesced. “Yes, yes, you’re right. We’ll get a private one next time, okay? Come on, let’s sit down before the airship takes off. Emil doesn’t look so good right now.” 

Lalli looked down at Emil in silent concern, but Emil couldn’t look at him, hurrying to one of the seats nearest the windows after Tuuri had pointed at them. It felt hard to breathe, suddenly, in the well-lit airship, with the light of the day entering and making him feel exposed. In Lalli’s home, everywhere had been dim and sparsely lit, and it had been a closed, comfortable place compared to this fresh and new environment. To be somewhere public and open where other beings could see him when angels usually worked in silence and secret was something so viscerally different to him, that it felt dangerous. It felt like something bad would happen; he feared dearly, for being found, and for just _existing_.

Lalli slid into the white-leather seat next to him like a snake, pressing into Emil’s side to whisper: “What’s wrong?” 

Emil felt conflicted to tell him as he held the armrests of his seat, fingers digging into the polished wood. But Lalli’s solid form against his side was a comfort, and when Lalli rested his hand just next to his — touching but never holding. Just there and never advancing — Emil felt reassured.

He whispered shakily, “I’ve seen ships like these before, in a different world. After the war. Lalli...it’s — it’s...it’s _horribly_ similar…” 

Emil knew, with one glance alone, that Lalli understood his plight. Despite Lalli having his strange mannerisms and patterns that differed from the humans Emil regularly saw, Lalli understood what would normally pass under other beings’ notice. 

Lalli tapped two fingers onto the back of his hand delicately, taking his notice. “Close your eyes. Breathe. When we’re up in the air, you can look at the clouds,” Emil dutifully closed his eyes and relaxed into his seat. The back of his hand felt like it had a lovely burn. “For now, just listen to me…” 

And so, for now, Lalli told Emil a story. 

* * *

Tuuri watched the both of them out of the corner of her eye, leafing through a book as she strained through the silent hum of the aircraft in order to hear Emil and Lalli’s hushed voices of distinct Swedish and Finnish. Tuuri felt out of place facing them, seeing a closeness that she had never seen Lalli comfortable with before, not to mention, him _willingly_ interacting with someone when he usually refused to spend too much time with them. She saw interactions that seemed to run deeper than she thought one could go with her cousin — something that she thought others could never reach.

Tuuri wondered who Emil was to break her expectations like that. 

“...grandma scolded me after that,” Lalli was saying; a story about him playing hide and seek with her and Onni, which resulted in Lalli getting stuck up in a tree till nightfall beyond the safe boundaries. 

Emil snorted. “As she should. Climbing fifty foot tall trees isn’t _exactly_ a normal human hobby,” he said this with a skeptical gaze towards her cousin. Lalli grumbled. “But then again, you seem more feline than most, aren’t you?” 

Proving his point, Lalli hunched into himself and hissed thinly. 

“See?! Who even does that?!”

Lalli looked put off by that statement, and pulled away from Emil. “No more stories for you.” He said it pettily and Emil reached over immediately, petting Lalli’s hand. A soft gesture that made Tuuri, herself, melt inside.

“Hey, hey, I meant it in a good way. Believe me, come on, now.” Tuuri wondered how long Emil and Lalli were corresponding with each other to gain this level of familiarity. If they were a thing — an _item_ or something undefined, even to Lalli, for he was strange with labels that way. Lalli never really put a label on anything. 

Though at the moment, Emil was _someone_ to him, like he had said, and her heart burned with a curiosity to know. 

“ _Mrrrr…._ now _you_ tell me a story. Won’t forgive you.” 

Emil laughed, bright like starbursts (Tuuri couldn’t fault Lalli if he fell for him), before looking out the window, their hands close and touching on the same armrest. Lalli looked with Emil out of the window and into the afternoon clouds outside, moving like waves in suspended motion — ethereal, beautiful, distracting. It gave Tuuri ample time to study them both as they gazed off, united, in a way that was beyond her. Something great and cosmic — _unfathomable._ If she had looked closely enough, maybe she could’ve seen the glow of Emil’s hair and skin. 

But Emil spoke. 

“Of course...I promised a few more before I’d go.” He told this to Lalli with sad, gentle eyes.

And Tuuri wasn’t completely ignorant to that statement. It felt like a promise made before a farewell. And maybe it _was_ , because Lalli had been vague about Emil — Emil _Västerström_ , apparently _(a surname Tuuri had thought she read from a book somewhere, but she couldn’t remember. It sounded like one of those names in a novel she had given Lalli years before. Tuuri was unaware, of course, that this surname was a lie_ ). 

Emil was from Sweden, a Theologian in the Luleå Theological Institute, and being an ambassador for the Nordic Council that often reached out to the Institutions, she knew that Luleå would be holding a semi-annual symposium on papers for interreligious dialogue and essays, held between the different Theological Institutions spread across Sweden and Denmark. The symposiums were held every spring and winter, and were a great deal that needed months of preparation ahead. And if Lalli was speaking with a Theologian from Sweden, Emil must be _someone_ important. They must’ve met somewhere in time while Tuuri was unaware. 

And that could mean they were working close together for a time, but would be separated by workloads that would be pulling them from each other. It looked to be the case with how they were acting right now. ( _She wondered idly if Emil were an explorer too, to have caught Lalli’s interest_.) 

Tuuri decided she’d visit the Luleå Theological Institute later down the line; see what strings she could pull for her cousin. 

It wasn’t so bad, after all, to see her cousin with a friend? — _lover?_ — someone, for once. After all these years of sticking his nose into maps and the stars, it was time he had someone to discuss them with, even for a bit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I published one chapter to make the updates even so far, and because a particular *someone* was making my heart burst with joy and i wanted to release one chapter early. You know who you are, you freakin psycho
> 
> i've made fanart of of my own fic, and im planning once this whole thing is done, imma put all the fanart i made at the very end. but you can check it out on my tumblr (of the same name) if you wanna


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hold out your hands, I'll breathe on them and place mine over.  
>  What do we have but this? ___
> 
> __- **Come In Close, by Joseph ******__

Lalli was usually the one who slept first when he became comfortable in spaces, but since this airship wasn’t private ( _had other passengers from Keuruu and parts of Saimaa_ ) and had more chattering noise in the air, he found it hard to take a nap or focus on anything else. There were the sounds of people, the hum of the engine, and music playing from a vinyl player in the middle of the common area. Tuuri could sleep through this maelstrom, an ability that he envied, but what he hadn’t expected was Emil, becoming exhausted in the middle of telling a story about a world filled with many great waterfalls. 

It was probably for the best, though. Emil had not taken to the airship well. Lalli’s stomach had churned when he had seen Emil’s frightened eyes — the same eyes he had asked Lalli to promise: never go to the Land of the Dead.

The less Lalli saw of those eyes, the better his heart and soul would feel.

“...you can sleep, you know,” he suggested quietly to a hazy-eyed Emil, who had sunk into his seat after seeing the passing clouds, descending into twilight before them. Emil hummed in reply, turned to Lalli — their faces so close, one would think it inappropriate. 

But it was to say: “If I could show you the world, beyond these barriers of clouds….I would…” he yawned this into his hand, “because up there, it is endless and beautiful...it is my home.” 

Lalli felt his heart silently burst at the statement. Who could promise such things like that except for an angel? ( _Especially Emil?_ ) Lalli rolled his eyes and patted the back of Emil’s hand, wanting to linger, but deciding to keep to himself instead.

“Hush now,” Lalli said, mind not wanting to dwell on useless promises. “Sleep, stupid.” 

Emil chuckled in humor and Lalli’s stomach churned at the sound. _He still couldn’t believe he could make someone laugh like that._

“Stupid is your favorite word.” 

Lalli snorted. “At least you know what you are.” 

Emil missed the point of the statement. “Your favorite?” His lazy eyes, despite being tired, were expectant. 

And Lalli wanted to deny the statement, but he couldn’t. That would be lying, and Emil was an angel who could see right through him. 

So he settled with: “ _Pshhhhhh!_ ” 

Emil smiled widely then, an expression so bright and honest with joy, Lalli found it hard to think that the angel could ever lie in front of people at all. The expression, Emil’s face: from his soft, blue eyes, to the golden hair, to the round cheeks, and gentle, gentle lips ( _for they had kissed him before, hadn’t they? Lalli would never forget that, not in months, not in years_ ), were such a show of refined devotion, Lalli would remember Emil in clarity in this moment, and for future moments to come. 

“Good night, Lalli,” Emil said, before leaning against the airship’s wall and slumbering. 

And Lalli — he couldn’t help but stare some more at the side of Emil’s face, memorizing it, taking it in, holding it close. 

Then he decided, quite reluctantly — _begrudgingly, because Emil would do the same for him, right?_ — to gently cup the angel’s face, and turn it ever so softly to settle on his shoulder instead, forgetting that Tuuri might be awake across him. Lalli knew from experience that sleeping with your head bent against the airship’s wall was a quick way to have neck pain. Better to have a shoulder to lay on. 

Because soon — Emil would have to leave, wouldn’t he? This small trip, this moment in time, this _person_ would soon leave, and Lalli would have to go back to his work, his telescope, the maps, and the papers because he knew nothing else in his life. Searching for windows always meant he could find a purpose in another world. Searching for windows had always been a _given,_ so he knew nothing else to do. He would have to return to _not having_ someone in his home; would have to return to waking up to no one and would have to tend to no one, and would be left with empty space on top of his bed, and — _and why?_

Why did the thought hurt so much more when he had been living like this for years? 

How could Emil be so cruel to change his life forever? 

( _How could Lalli take and take stories from him, when he knew he’d be getting nothing else?_ )

Lalli, at this moment, hated Emil more than anyone else in the world. Lalli hated the kind, devoted angel who ruined him for the rest of his life. 

And hating him hurt more than the thought of coming to adore him.

( _Coming to adore him_. He turned the realization in his head. _Was it too soon to call it that? Was adoring too much of a word? Or did it really matter anymore?_ ) 

Lalli stared at Emil on his shoulder one more time: the thin eyelids, the lashes and veins; his strong nose, his golden hair, the fuzz of his cheeks, the glowing skin, the weight of his head. _Those lips._ He savored it all, took what he could, because he was an explorer; a selfish one who was, once, willing to abandon his world for a purpose in another ( _and had failed at finding it_ ).

Now this was his chance of finding a new purpose — _another world._

And if one looked upon Lalli then, peering at Emil on his shoulder, one could say: _no one had ever adored a person more than him in this world, at this moment_. 

And who could blame him? Who would fault him for adoring such a beautiful face? 

“Good night,” he said back thinly, swallowing past the lump in his throat, and breaking his gaze away from the angel. He looked at the clouds, hating how his fingers shook. How fearfully his heart trembled.

He felt the burn of tears in the back of his eyes and pretended not to feel it.

* * *

Their airship landed safely in the air docks at midnight, quiet for the evening hour. Lalli watched the crew of the air docks fuss around the helipad, checking for any damage as their watch cats trotted about and scouted the area. Lalli turned to look down Emil, who had woken with the stop of the ship’s hum, his lashes fluttering. Lalli stared at his mess of a hair before patting it into place, fixing the strands here and there and grooming him as Emil got his bearings, scrubbing a hand down his face to wake up. 

“Where…” he yawned, “where are we?” 

Tuuri, fixing up her rumpled blouse and her skirt, giggled at the way Emil was being pampered and fretted over. “Reykjavik, Emil. Did you have _that_ good of a rest?” 

Emil smiled brightly, and Lalli narrowed his eyes at Tuuri, not liking how she had a secret in her eyes. How she was pointedly looking at Lalli with a teasing grin. _Mrrrrrr._

“Yes, the sleep was great! It was surprisingly comfortable. I didn’t really think the airship’s wall would be _that_ accommodating,” the angel said and Lalli was both warmed by the words, and disappointed with the angel’s clear lack of observance skills. 

Lalli flicked his forehead. “You slept on my _shoulder,_ stupid.” He should be given more credit than a stupid _airship wall._

Emil took this more personally, though. “Oh!” His face immediately morphed into worry and shame, holding Lalli’s shoulder as if the touch could fix any grave wound he had inflicted. The touch thrummed. “Sorry, I didn’t know that I moved... um, did I bother you? I hope I didn’t —”

“ _No,_ ” Lalli almost spat, hating how Tuuri was there to witness him getting flustered from Emil’s attention. “ _I_ put you on _my_ shoulder, you stupid Swede.” 

Emil blinked in surprise, his cheeks glowing with a brilliant hue of red. “Oh, I didn’t know…” he stood up, fixing his coat and itching at it with nervousness with one hand as he pulled Lalli up with the other. “Thank you?” The nervous grin he gave Lalli made his toes curl.

Lalli huffed angrily, not meeting Tuuri’s conniving grin. “Let’s just get to the sheep herder’s house already,” he gritted through his teeth. 

“Okay!” Tuuri tittered before them and Lalli sincerely hoped that she would trip on the way out. 

Now Reykjavik was a beautiful place, sprawling with life and warm lights, being a blessed country that had been well protected when the Great Ripple occurred years before. They had managed to stop most of the illness from spreading horribly across their land, and most Old World buildings have been preserved and kept with care and maintenance, showing the beauty of the old cities and pathways as they made their way down to Reynir Árnason’s home where the wedding would be held on their large piece of land. 

At the moment, Lalli was captivated. Not by the sights, or the lights, or the people, because to be frank, he’d already been to this place many times for parties and dinner with the Árnason’s. The wonder of it had worn off of him already. Plus, he didn’t like Reykjavik as much as he did the forests around his home. 

But it was Emil, with astonished eyes, looking at everything with wonder. One look at him, and Lalli wouldn’t have believed the angel went to different worlds because he looked to be surprised enough by this one alone. Now, Lalli was noticing new things because of him: how light shined wetly on the pavement; how it made Emil's hair glow. How the buzz of night critters went along with Emil's silent remarks and observations. How Emil was the brightest light in this dead hour, his fascinated smile and presence dominating the area. How Reykjavik — so bland and dull — was suddenly _so beautiful._

“Has he ever been to Reykjavik, Lalli?” Tuuri asked him as she pulled along her luggage. Lalli snorted, shaking his head. 

“Well, he looks to be enjoying it now,” Tuuri mused. He didn’t see the way Tuuri secretly eyed him, too busy with the sight of Emil petting one of the cats. 

“Why don’t you go fetch him, Lalli? Before we get into more trouble,” she suggested after some time. “It’s already late, and we should get to Reynir's to rest for tomorrow. I’ll go fetch a cab.” 

Lalli nodded and went to fetch his angel, narrowing his eyes at the cat underneath Emil’s petting hand. The cat hissed and backed away, and Emil looked up, eyes glowing, face glowing, hair shining — 

“ _Emil!_ ” Lalli whisper shouted, hand darting out to grab Emil by the hand to pull him up, steering him away from one of the nearby personnel that handled the cats. Lalli turned the both of them around before any of the personnel could see them, then walked briskly with Emil, reprimanding him, “Your glow! They’ll see!” 

“Oh!” Emil said, his glow dimming. “I forgot! I didn’t mean to, Lalli!” 

Lalli shook his head, his heart bumping with fear against his chest. That was close. _So, so close_. Lalli knew how strict Iceland was with monsters and anomalies, and that included angels or any celestial beings that entered into their world, even if they haven’t set foot in their world for decades. The fact that the illnesses were said to have come from the Great Ripple and the windows of their universe — and it being once said that _angels_ were the ones who solely used these windows as a means of travel — did not bode anything well for Emil. As far as Lalli knew, he was bringing in a possibly _infected entity_ into the heart of Iceland. Lalli would be detained. Emil could be killed. 

But Emil wasn’t infected, he knew that. Still, that did not guarantee anything safe for the angel. 

Lalli wondered what he was even _thinking_ , bringing him along. 

But then — but then — 

He felt it. Emil’s hand, squeezing back his own; holding his hand in a cocoon of warmth, Lalli didn’t need his magical senses in order to feel the life and the energy thrumming in Emil’s hands, racing through his fingers. He didn’t need his magical senses to be aware that Emil was made of dust and consciousness, materialized to make a solid form. How it burst like stars and bits of the universe on his skin. It felt like a taste of the cosmos, and how the stars and dark matter would feel like. It felt like how space would feel beneath his touch: velvety and suspended in motion, hugged by a force beyond gravity. 

Lalli looked down to meet Emil’s eyes that were worried yet determined. 

“I’ll be careful, next time, I swear,” he said seriously. 

Lalli wanted to lean in close, feel the angel’s words. But he didn’t. That would be stupid to do here. 

“Good,” was all Lalli said, “but don’t worry. We’ll be there soon.” 

Emil smiled and Lalli feared that the angel would let go of his hand — but he didn’t. Instead, they walked hand in hand towards the cab Tuuri had hailed, waiting for them just outside of the air docks. Lalli felt like someone had lit a sun in his heart — a burgeoning force of life and movement, moving in tandem with Emil — floating in the space of his body, drifting to the angel every time his eyes gave him the chance. 

Lalli held the hand in his, mused how perfectly it felt. 

Was this what it felt like? To be held down in reality, yet to be tossed into the infinity of space? 

Was this what it felt like to exist for once? To be allowed to transcend worlds? 

Because if the Authority had still lived, and if the world had not rippled, there was no doubt Lalli wouldn’t have tasted this different universe. This different world. This different feeling. 

And though it would be ripped away from him soon, he didn’t have the heart to regret this moment: 

This angel, this person, this time and space — these things he couldn’t have found in his telescope and in the stars if he tried. 

( _But if he knew it would take the death of a god to have made this moment reality, he would’ve done it himself a lot sooner._ )


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _No, I don't have a script for this  
>  But I know the right words exist  
> Somewhere  
> And I just need more time ___
> 
> __- **Atlas: Body, by Sleeping At Last ******__

It was dark in the guest room where Reynir’s mother had rushed them into, the morning hours taking its toll and making pleasantries be pushed back for the morning. Admittedly, Sigriður had needed a double take at the sight of Emil since he was an unfamiliar face, but she had already been informed ahead by Tuuri, via a gushing and talkative Reynir (“ _Can you believe it, ma? Lalli_ , Lalli _of all people is bringing someone! Someone he_ likes!”) that Lalli and his — _er, boyfriend_ — would also be attending the wedding (which was fine, really, because: “ _the more, the merrier_ '' was practically their family motto, and one more body in the house couldn’t hurt.) The only thing she hadn’t expected when she opened her front doors to welcome them in was: right next to the flinty, cold Hotakainen and the short, chattering one, they were accompanied by a... _bright_ young man. 

Bright, in a way, that he was expressive and honest through each of his words and actions. _Brutally honest._ He hadn’t been afraid at all to say to her face that she looked really terrible and exhausted ( _which wasn’t a misnomer, since it was two in the morning._ ) The only saving grace that kept the young man from her fury was the fact that she was already used to the no-nonsense Hotakainens and their point-blank assessments. 

When Reynir had told her that the youngest Hotakainen was bringing a person he apparently liked, she didn’t know what type of partner he would be into. She had assumed that the Hotakainen would also be into someone as silent and unfazed as him. 

But now, look at where that assumption got her: the oldest, grumpiest Hotakainen, marrying her troublesome son. 

One look upon Emil, next to the stone-faced Hotakainen made her surprised at her own shock, for she should’ve expected his complete opposite, really. But as of the moment, she was too tired to care. Sigriður had enough energetic children in her life ( _Reynir and all of his siblings basically, and that beast of a woman Sigrun Eide, her son’s friend, was not any better_ ), so she ushered them away to save some energy for them in the morning. 

* * *

Emil was sitting up on the guest bed, and Lalli was lying underneath, patting the sheets into place. The stars outside of the window were beautiful, accompanied by sprawling lands outside that were dotted with tents to be prepared for tomorrow’s wedding. Emil stared at them as he waited for Lalli to rustle around and settle into place. He heard a frustrated sigh. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, looking over the bed to peer at Lalli. 

Lalli’s eyes were bright in the dark, and were both frustrated yet tired. 

“...can’t stop thinking…”

“About what?” Emil was lying down on his stomach now, chin on his folded arms as he peered at Lalli over the bed. It was unusual for Lalli to fuss so much when he was tired. He could fall asleep anywhere back in his home.

Lalli sighed and looked earnestly into Emil’s eyes for a moment, battling a short conflict before he decided to say: “You leaving.” He said it so honestly, before looking away. 

Emil’s throat clogged at that, the saddening thoughts coming back to rush him once again before he sighed, looking away from Lalli too, to peer into the darkness of the room. Tuuri had her own guest room separate from the men, so Emil was glad she was not here to bother them. 

Especially in this moment as he reached a hand out to Lalli, just far enough that he could brush his hair. “It has been plaguing me too, Lalli...but it must be done…”

There was a brief silence, Emil’s fingers softly touching Lalli’s hair, before Lalli shifted into the sheets, holding Emil’s hand briefly with his own — sending his heart jumping and squeezing so suddenly, surprised by the contact. 

“Come by then...from time to time…” Lalli didn’t ask, and said this with an uncertain confidence, afraid that Emil would say no, but confident in what he was trying to express. “You can visit me sometimes…”

The words made Emil’s heart hurt so beautifully, the fact that Lalli still wanted more to do with him, despite their different lives, their purposes, and their duties. Emil wondered how blessed he could be to come across someone like this — who seemed to want the thought and presence of him, now and into the future. 

It made his soul quiver so delicately in his angelic form. The knowledge of Lalli’s wants — his desire, for Emil to come back. 

Oh, did it hurt so _terribly_. 

“I’ll try,” Emil promised. “There are millions of windows out there — and time flows differently in ways I can’t sometimes comprehend. But I promise to return, I swear to you.” 

Emil felt his heart sting when Lalli let go of his hand and pulled away, to bury himself deep into the bowels of the bed. Emil could not blame him, though, for his words could very well be delicate promises that could break over time. Delicate words that could mean nothing to Lalli’s mortal life. 

Lalli sounded far away when he said: “I still haven’t forgiven you. Tell me another story.” 

Emil smiled at that, despite the sadness of his heart. He wanted to hold and reassure Lalli that he would keep his word, more than anything. But he was an angel devoted, and a story was asked of him ( _not silly promises_ ) — so, a story, he would tell.

“Alright...so there was this world, filled with large trees — larger than the ones you hid in as a child, Lalli,” Emil smiled at the quiet snort he heard underneath the bed, “and they stretched up to the sky, to touch the dust and the life of the worlds. Flying to the top of one would even tire _me_ …and it used to be a place of refuge for me, Baruch, and Balthamos...” 

Emil didn't know why he was speaking to Lalli about Baruch and Balthamos, so suddenly and for the first time. But maybe this was because he subconsciously knew their time was drawing near, or maybe because there was no one as silent, as free, or as open as Lalli, who swallowed his words with no question. 

( _Or maybe because he wanted to be closer to Lalli at this moment, more than anything else._ )

But Emil was free to talk about the worlds; the life and the death of beings; his plights, his sorrows, and how Emil himself was a coward. 

And he _knew_ that was what he was, and Lalli, thankfully, never tried to refute that. 

Lalli just accepted him for what he truly was: _a stupid, cowardly angel_. 

And those were one of the many reasons why Emil had come to adore this human, this being, _this person._

( _And no one else._ )

They gradually fell to sleep just as the sun shone in the sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter, but is a prelude for what's to come!!!
> 
> please, comments keep me going and I'd love to hear all of your thoughts!!!! I've been having a blast writing all of this, and though I'm still chapters ahead, I fear that I might enter a rut soon! but i hope all of you enjoyed these so far!!!! 
> 
> <3333

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, yes, I have another work ongoing, but I COULDNT HELP MYSELF. this gripped me by the heart and told me to write at gunpoint OASDJOIADOIASJD


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